Your Move
by Nakanna Lee
Summary: A chess game flashes back to med school, confessions, and brings to light decisions that have to be made. HW. Please read and review! FINISHED with chpt 22 up!
1. Chapter 1

After my Home/Change/Trust trilogy wrapped up, I realized I still had some stories left to be told. You don't _have_ to read the other three stories to get this one, but here's what happened for a brief overview:

Home: Wilson kisses House; ultimately avoid relationship

Change: House convinces Wilson to stay; ultimately accept relationship

Trust: House and Wilson maintain their relationship despite potentially tempting situations

This story consists of a chess game, a series of vignettes, and everyone else's reaction to Wilson and House's relationship. As always, reviews are greatly appreciated, particularly with this first chapter. I have some future ones sketched out and in the process, but I'd love to know what you think. Thanks!

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The chessboard was nothing particularly special. Made of wooden squares—some dyed mahogany and others left in pallor grains—it originally came with a full set of brown and cream-colored pieces. A series of pawns, a king, a queen, and two each of bishops, rooks, and horses set neatly on the playing table, little figurines set to move out onto their field of battle. The only missing piece was a rook, one that House had used to prop up Steve McQueen's water bottle. An old whiskey bottle cap sufficed for a replacement.

As Wilson sat on the couch opposite House, a late November sun glinted off the faint red tints in the oncologist's hair. The older man glanced up momentarily before finishing the board's setup. He handed Wilson the bottle cap and gestured for him to put it in the empty space on his side of the board.

"Hey, thanks, House."

"Spare the sarcasm. That's the lucky piece."

They smiled, and House ran his eyes again along the man in front of him, still trying to convince himself he was still here, that neither of them had messed up the relationship. It was incredible, really—almost miraculous, even, but "miracles" were a cop-out explanation of the worst sort, and House refused to let it explain anything.

Still. They'd been friends for twenty years, best friends for ten of those, and closer than he'd ever thought possible for the past half-year. They had a long way to go, House knew, but neither was in much of a hurry to rush along and stumble in the process.

House mentally tallied the number of people who knew about them. Cameron, thanks to her irritably perceptive ways, had figured it out almost right off the bat. Julie, too, according to Wilson. But as far as he knew, they'd kept their relationship clandestine from everyone else at the hospital, including Cuddy and the other two ducklings.

That, House relented, _might_ be miraculous. But he still wasn't quite sure if that's what he wanted.

He observed the oncologist carefully, quietly, curiously. Early yesterday morning, he'd gotten a call from Julie that she was on her way into Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital, and within minutes he'd met her in the room. Wilson still had the sated glow of a new parent.

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Somehow, Wilson had convinced Julie to let House be there for the birth, too. The older man had dredged up some respectability and sequestered himself to the corner of the room, while Wilson reassuringly squeezed Julie's hand. No diamond and gold band adorned either ones' fingers; skin on skin assured enough familiarity of companionship to carry them through the moment.

House resisted the urge to comment that the birthing doctor was incompetent or that the nurses did nothing but take up space. He itched as a bystander, but swallowed his ego to enjoy Wilson's expression when he held his daughter for the first time.

Then. Then, House had felt a slight pang of envy. Not so much because Wilson's attention was fixated on something House didn't have, but because House hadn't been the one—_couldn't_ be the one—to share this part of Wilson's life, to make him happy in this way.

The oncologist had nodded for House to join him and Julie in their little circle of affectionate attention to the child. She was so small. House had seen countless births throughout his medical career, but even he couldn't lie to himself about how surreal this one had been. He glanced over at Julie, checking for confirmation that he wasn't tainting their breathing space. She was too enraptured with the tiny life to notice.

Setting a hand on Wilson's shoulder, he peered into the smooth blue eyes of his love's daughter. Even smaller up close. She was a soft, fragile mass of wrinkles, like an ancient woman with the world's knowledge, curled up under a rippling blanket in the crook of Wilson's elbow. He rocked her softly back and forth, talking and cooing in that annoying parental tone that instinct prompts even the most inexperienced adults to use.

House smiled despite himself, then leaned forward to kiss Wilson's cheek. Julie, face still flushed and tired eyes shining an ebullient shade, didn't comment. Almost sisterly, she faintly squeezed Wilson's arm, encouraging him to bring their daughter back down to a level where they both could admire her.

Giving Wilson a supportive shoulder-rub, House told him he'd be waiting at home, but to take his time. Nice wasn't exactly something he was everyday; but then again, Wilson had become the occasional exception, and this was an exceptional occasion.

Wilson returned a hurried kiss to House's lips, and then broke into an insuppressible smile when his daughter gurgled, crying, and announced her existence to anyone willing to listen.

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At the moment, Julie was the only one within hearing range. Months ago, her boyfriend had come under arrest for abuse and had long since disappeared, leaving her house and life once again secure. She and Wilson had worked out a mutual agreement between them—Wilson would stop by after work for a few hours to spend time with their daughter, and once she was a few months older Julie had cautiously allowed Wilson to take her for a few consecutive days.

Of course, it all sounded perfect now, House thought suspiciously. Time will tell.

He didn't want to dampen Wilson's mood, though. He'd been on such an emotional high that he'd spent the night at the hospital, wide-awake, sleep incomparable with the rush of awe he felt for his child. House, meanwhile, had limped around the apartment, ignoring the pain in his leg, overcome with thoughts and questions of his own.

If he couldn't share this part of Wilson, he needed something more to compensate for it. There were too many blank spaces, he realized, when it came to his friend, his love. Asking would be easier, but it lacked the sardonic fun House so enjoyed. He had a better idea.

Consequently, House dredged out the chessboard and set it up, just in time for Wilson to finally return home from the hospital.

"So. Jimmy." House repositioned his king like he was staking out territory. "Ever play chess before?"

"Of course." Wilson's words had a lilt of confusion to them, but his suspicions were nearly eradicated by his parental enthusiasm. He hung up his light suede jacket and wandered over to House, sinking into the reassuring sofa. He glanced over the board, amusement flickering across his face at the whiskey bottle cap. "I used to play a lot more than I do now, though. I actually won a chess tournament back in med school. So I was pretty good."

"Well, let's not jump to conclusions. You've never played _me _before."

Wilson grinned. "True."

House watched him with an eagle eye, then referenced the board again. With a quick sweep of his limber fingers, he swiped away one of his own brown pieces. "Here. I'll even play you without my queen."

"No fair," Wilson protested with a smile when he saw where the game was going. "You just want to have an excuse if you lose."

"_If_? Come on, Jimmy, have some confidence. I thought you were a regular pro."

Wilson rubbed his hands in lighthearted anticipation, then prompted redundantly, "What's the catch?"

"I thought you'd never ask." House leaned back on his chair, rescuing a Vicodin from the depths of his pocket. He swallowed and tapped the chessboard with a finger, pointedly. "For every piece that a person takes, the other had to tell a story."

"A story. About what?"

"One of the other's request. It can be personal, pointless, whatever."

"Nothing is ever pointless to you, is it, House?"

A smile flitted across the gruff doctor's face. "I'll even let you move first. Aren't I being generous?"

Wilson reached for a pawn, and House stopped him with a quick breath, as if he'd just remembered something. The oncologist glanced up.

"Pick carefully. I have some interesting questions for you to answer."

"I'm sure I can think of some interesting stories for you to tell, too."

House paused for a good moment or two before slightly nodding in agreement. "I suppose so."


	2. Chapter 2

Wilson had slid a pawn up an opening two spaces, and House had aggressively enacted his horse, moving in its typical L shape.

"What are you better at?" Wilson asked him offhandedly as he perused the board. "Chess or Poker?"

"If I tell you Poker, you'll think you'll have this in the bag. You'll get cocky. Might even make some rash decisions."

Wilson tilted his head sideways and narrowed his eyes at the board, thinking. "Not necessarily. Chess is more analytic, less guessing. Both sides know what they're getting into—all the pieces are right in front of you. In Poker, the other hand is always concealed. The difference is, I can tell when you lie. That's why I can beat you at Poker."

"That is an interesting development. Since when did you translate my b.s. into direct truth?"

Wilson smiled, and after another moment of consideration he moved his bishop diagonally across a few spaces. House grinned smugly, promptly capturing it with his horse.

"Hey!" Surprised, Wilson blinked and double-checked the game pieces. "I didn't even see that."

"Subliminal messaging," House replied with a professional air as he set the oncologist's bishop on the table. "I said _b.s., _you unconsciously thought _bishop._ I said _direct_, and moving diagonally is a pretty straight, quick way of getting somewhere."

"Now that's a bit of stretch, isn't it?" Wilson retorted, but couldn't help but concede that was an interesting little trick.

"Don't bother trying it on me. I'm insusceptible."

"Well, you've practically _patented_ these little games, haven't you?"

House waggled his eyebrows and held up the bishop to emphasize his point. "I believe you have a story to tell."

Wilson reached for the bottle of whiskey House had set up on the table. He swayed it back and forth, watching the glimmer of golden liquid slosh languidly within the glass. He was still in too good a mood to need a drink. Setting down the bottle with a clink, he returned his attention to House, curious and yet somehow tentative. "What do you want to know?"

The older man accepted the whiskey Wilson had passed up. "I want to know…what you _really_ thought of me back in med school."

"I told you," Wilson replied after a pause, casually evading eye contact. "I… I didn't really know what to think."

"Did you know that the majority of people look to the left when they lie?"

Wilson turned his head forward quickly, his actions too hasty to be subtle. House raised his brows, keying in on the sudden change of expression on his friend's face.

"Did you like me then?"

Wilson sighed, in that way that was so typical of him, when all the wrinkles fled his face and he slipped into some past memory. When he'd drift off into a recollection, House noticed, it was like ironing a shirt—there was a whooshing sigh, the thoughts steaming around him, smoothing out present stresses, worries, and crinkles in the fabric of his face.

"I… I thought you were conceited. Condescending. Caustic."

"All those good 'c' words. Let's throw in _cantankerous _while we're at it." House smiled, and got a similar expression in return as he poked at Wilson's leg with his cane. "Come on. If I have to pry the story out of you, this game will take forever."

"All right, all right," Wilson relented. He shifted on the couch momentarily, as if sorting out the words he wanted, then divulged the first, a dedication for his captured bishop.

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_Wilson_

Med school was different than I'd expected, somehow. I'd never been away from home, and—because I'd skipped ahead a year in high school—I was younger than all the other freshmen in college. It was far from home and my family, both of which were my backbone and identity for seventeen years.

The work, I didn't mind. That was never a problem. I enjoyed research, I liked working and solving puzzles. Not quite to the level you do, House—I'm not the Rubix cube fanatic, but there's something satisfying about finding an answer to improve someone's condition.

It was a large college, so mostly all of our classes were lectures. Three-, four-, five-hundred students sometimes were crammed into these sprawling auditorium rooms. A professor would talk way down in front and his voice would echo in three waves, bouncing off the whitewash walls, then be lost in the constant shuffling of book bags and scribbling of pens and muffled questions between students.

For the first few months, I felt like a number in the head of someone I knew would never learn to count high enough to ever reach me. It was…disappointing. I'd been told all my life how smart I was, and I'd hung my entire future on the fact that science and math made sense to me. Realizing that there were so many others who were likewise at that level—or even well beyond it—was humbling, even rattling. I didn't know if I wanted to become a doctor anymore; I didn't know if I could compete. I thought of transferring, actually.

And then, by a glitch in my schedule, I had your class.

I was supposed to be taking some History of Modern Medicine course with a Doctor O'Callahan. Isn't that bizarre? I still remember his name. I saw him sporadically on campus. He was a slouching, teetering mess of age and white hair who looked as if he'd personally _been_ there for the history of medicine.

But my advisor had mistakenly signed me up for your class instead. I should write a letter of thanks to that school, come to think of it.

I know personality-wise, everyone claims you haven't changed all that much. Sometimes I feel like you have; your jokes have always been derisive, only more so now; you've always been a wry pessimist, only more so now; you've always done what was right even it meant screwing the commonly accepted, you just do so with more panache now.

It's strange to think of you without the omnipotent cane, actually. Dark, thick hair made your eyes shatter every previous concept of blue; you spoke like there was never enough time to say all that needed to be voiced. You moved quickly, like a lanky flash of light, disregarding your desk and choosing instead to wander about the lecture hall as you taught. You never resigned yourself to one spot. Once, you journeyed all the way back to the nosebleeds of the room, pulled up a chair, and promptly sat down on it, resting your feet—clad in unprofessional sneakers—on my desk.

"I can hear you falling asleep from way down there," you told me, pointing to the speck that was your unused desk. "Now, either you severely lack ability to find me entertaining, or you're a Boy Wonder."

I then rambled off the answer to whatever medical quandary you'd presented, and you just stared at me.

It was the most silence I think anyone had ever heard from you in that class.

After that, I always stayed after your lectures to talk in more detail about medicine. I was so late to my upcoming classes that one professor even assumed I'd dropped his class. We'd fall into the habit of digressing onto tangents—a cough would become the weather, the weather would become the weekend, the weekend would become games to see or concerts to attend, and somehow I enjoyed your company more than my roommates', or any other person I'd met on campus. I was too young and too mature for the others around me—the same as it was in high school.

You were the first person not to treat me like I was so talented and above them. I trusted you entirely. I admired you immensely.

I knew you were leagues beyond me, but you only used condescension to be funny. A bit like how it is currently, only I think now you use it as a defense mechanism, too.

It was nearing the end of my first year, and I was spending obscenely early hours cramming for a final exam in the library. Out of a sleep-deprived corner of my eyes, I caught sight of you ushering a pile of books into your arms from random shelves. You'd read anything and everything. It was the one thing you were not picky over. All information was worth something to you.

With a thud that reverberated through the empty library, you set the pile down on my table and took a seat across from me, like how you're sitting now. You smiled a greeting and I glanced over the books you'd whisked from their dusty slumber.

_The Divine Comedy_, _Freudian Psychology, And Then There Were None, Winston Churchill: A Biography, _and _Writing a Screenplay_.

I must have looked amused, because you made some offhand comment about how making fun of my professor was not about to earn me a higher grade on the final. I took a breath, reviewing the mental storehouse of information I'd accumulated over the past few months, then confessed that I was fairly confident in my preparedness.

Well, that did it. You were off to the races, firing a barrage of questions at me, growing slightly annoyed when it took me longer than you thought was necessary to come up with a suitable answer. A few times, you irritably waved a hand and answered for me. Each medical situation required an immediate combination of insight, instinct, and just dumb luck—all of which you had, and used with stunning brilliance. I wasn't nearly at your level—I'm still not—but I managed to keep up well enough for a freshman.

"Boy Wonder." You relinquished the title with a grin, then mussed my hair to the side with a friendly swipe of your hand. I watched you as you strolled out of the swinging glass doors and into the cool, calm night, books piled in your arms. I knew they'd be back, read and analyzed, within the next two weeks.

I'd lost the concentration to study, and I didn't know why.

Back in the dorm, I succumbed to a three o'clock in the morning shower, letting the rivulets of water declare their pathways through my floppy brown hair. Impulsively, at the call of some enigmatic, rash instinct, I turned the showerhead to the hardest setting, that frenetic throbbing one, and let it massage its way along my stiff neck, down the slender curve of my back, pulsing at my waist, confessing ownership and control.

I shivered under the scorching hot shower stream until the water ran cold.

And that was when I knew.

_End_

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House was quiet and Wilson distracted himself with pretending he was about to make his next move. His fingers brushed along the whiskey bottle cap. House stopped him.

"For that long?"

Wilson tried to shrug like it was nothing. It was obviously something; House could tell by the stiffness in his shoulders and the humble blush of crimson searing above his shirt line and diffusing across his face.

"Embarrassment made you keep it a secret for all those years?"

"No. I wasn't—I wasn't embarrassed. I was unsure."

"Unsure of what? That you'd be mocked and ridiculed for the rest of your life? That your family would reject you?"

"You know, House, not _everyone_ is as hostile as you sometimes like to think they are."

"All right, Carl Jung. So then tell me: Whatever happened to 'suppressing instinctual urges'?"

"I did. I never told you what I felt. I tried to ignore it for twenty years."

"Yes. You used Freud's defense mechanism #5 instead."

"Enlighten me."

"Reaction Formation. You tried to love three different women because it was unacceptable to love me."

Wilson paused, thinking he'd caught something hurt in House's tone. Instead, he moved the rook forward in a smooth, straight line.

"Waiting was better," Wilson finally said, smoothing over the once-burgeoning rift in the room. "I don't think we could've handled a relationship back then."

"Well." House leaned forward, keenly examining the board before he shifted a pawn. "It just gives us more reason to make up for all that time we lost."

"Speaking of losing things…" With his rook, Wilson snatched up House's exposed horse behind the pawn. He got such a flamboyant, childish thrill at winning; it was the high school athlete resurfacing, House thought, smiling to himself. "Your turn for a story."


	3. Chapter 3

Thanks so much for all the encouragement and reviews, everyone! On to chapter three...

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"Horses are stupid anyway. I'd rather give them up than a bishop. Do you know how hard it is to capture anything when you have to be a L-shape away all the time?" House didn't bother to wait for Wilson to answer. "Of course, I'm talking to the chess champion, so I'm sure he knows the game inside-out."

"Stop stalling," Wilson smiled. "You're going to have to tell a story regardless."

"Well then, whenever you've got a question."

Wilson stretched his lips to the side, thinking momentarily, tapping a finger on his jeans. Then he looked back up at House, eyes settling on his face. "Tell me how you picked me for the internship."

"The board of Princeton-Plainsboro selected randomly as far as I know. Sure, they probably sorted out the amateur applicants, but everyone who passed the college final and submitted a photo that didn't look like a convict's mugshot had a chance."

"Come on, House. This last time you weeded through files for weeks before narrowing your choices down. And then it took even longer for you to finally decide on Chase, Cameron, and Foreman."

"What can I say? I'm more thorough now."

"The board didn't pick. They _never_ pick. Besides, you're too much of a control freak to let them choose who gets the fellowship. These people will be working under you, after all." Wilson raised an eyebrow, trying a different route. "I was honest with you."

"That was your choice. No one forced you."

"Out of courtesy, then. I want the same honesty."

"Well, well, don't you have high demands?"

"This is _your_ game, House. _You_ made the rules."

"Don't I hold the right to un-make them?" He sighed, deciding that he'd annoyed Wilson enough for the moment. The oncologist watched him steadily. House's evasive attitude was nothing new. In fact, thanks to their tailspinning banter, House was convinced that Wilson would be able to withstand any cruel and unusual punishment should he ever be interrogated by some secret government agency—or grilled by Cuddy, for that matter. The older man smiled, tapping his cane against the wooden floorboards, letting the click resonate.

"Your internship…" House craned his neck back, squinting his eyes as if to clear up the dates in his head. "That was—what?—eight years ago?"

"When you first started working at the hospital," Wilson confirmed.

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_House_

What people don't realize is this: Everyone is born with a set amount of sanity. According to my experience and dedicated research—and by "dedicated," I mean "random and impulsive"—there must be a genetic component, since each individual seems to go about their lives with a differing amount. Like hair—in which a person is genetically predestined to go gray before thirty or bald by forty—a lack of the sanity gene ensures inevitable psychological issues.

Throughout a person's life, the well of sanity is used until eventually, like any perfect metaphor, the well runs dry. Then, _snap_, the person breaks like a rubber band.

See what I just did there? Three metaphors to explain one idea. Those who can't follow, take notes or ask the person aside you. I won't be repeating myself.

Now, what _I _didn't realize was this: Dr. Lisa Cuddy was drawing on a dangerously low water table.

She was happy enough that I'd accepted the diagnostic position at Princeton-Plainsboro. After years of teaching at a college level, it was refreshing to look at patients who were actually dying, and not just students looking lifeless in the middle of my lectures. The whole principle of a "teaching hospital," it turns out though, is to educate, or—as some might even say—"teach." Phenomenal. At any rate, Cuddy was _so _happy in fact that she informed me I could award fellowships to any student of my wish.

Yes. Extremely low on the water table.

She told me to pick three. I told her one. She told me three and I shut up, mainly because I figured I'd have plenty of opportunities down the road to irritate her. Another skillful deduction.

The application list was endless, and you know how much I hate filing to begin with. Everyone's grades were flawless, and everyone had apparently paid off their professors to compliment their "profound work ethic" and "tireless effort" to medicine. I wasn't sure if I was hiring doctors or drones.

Then I came across a particularly familiar face. It must have been a blustery day the time you took the photo, or maybe you hadn't mastered the blow-dryer yet, because your hair was like a tumbleweed. You had the same skinny frame, sharply-angled cheekbones, eyes that defaulted to that "open and ready for anything" look that unavoidably short-circuits after a couple years.

I'm still waiting on that to happen to you, though.

At any rate, I pulled out your file, thinking back to your time as a college student.

As a freshman, your final exam achieved the top five percentile level out of your graduating class, and the top ten percentile of highest scores ever received in the college's medical history. Not bad. I mentally gave you the remaining three years to somehow screw it up, get a big head, seduce some girl and run away to the Caribbean and throw out the idea of becoming a doctor. Shockingly, that never happened.

Should I still be waiting on that, too?

I never taught you again after your first year, but that didn't stop you from dropping into my lectures and forgoing you free time to spend in my company. When you graduated, you went off to some internship back home. I was there, shaking your hand and wishing you luck, when you told me that you'd miss my classes. It was the only time I could remember you avoiding my eyes.

I picked out your file because it was one I knew I wouldn't regret. Besides, I wanted to know what had happened to make you leave the internship you'd accepted after college. Was home too stifling for you after four years away? Was it different than you remembered? Did you feel too good for the people around you, or did you just simply grow out of them?

I didn't know about Ian back then. It makes sense now.

The other two interns, I could have sent their files to be selected by the lottery drawing. I did it myself, instead. I sprawled the applications across my floor in a haphazard spill of resumes, then tossed my baseball onto them and watched where it stopped. Some Harvard grad with a pair of glasses he most likely stole from his mother. Specialized in radiation therapy. Well, that would go interestingly with you as the oncologist. I rolled out the eight ball for my final selection, and it indecisively stopped between two applications: one, an aspiring pediatrician from Wyoming and the other, a cardiologist with an unpronounceable name.

I picked the cardiologist because I wanted to hear Cuddy stutter while greeting her every morning. It's the simple joys of life, really.

Within four months, the radiation doc had some sort of nervous breakdown, and the cardiologist was too busy being more annoying than her name to put in the required effort. They left, and you stayed.

You didn't need the internship. You were entirely capable of getting a job somewhere already, but I wanted you to find a place here. The hospital could've definitely used another bright mind to chisel out solutions for cases, especially one that was so specialized in an area as convoluted as oncology.

Cuddy offered you a job before your internship was even completed; you had your own office with shiny nameplate hardly a year later.

I picked you because you were smart, and if I'd botch any decisions I'd make, I could always point to you and say, "Hey, at least I did _something_ right."

_End_

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Wilson chewed at his lower lip as he watched House down a sip of whiskey.

"That was the worst story I ever heard."

"What are you talking about?"

"_That_. I didn't ask for a chronological explanation. I _know_ how it happened. I wanted to know how you _felt_ when you picked me."

"It was my story. I could tell it how I wanted."

"You can't make it that simple."

"But it was that simple." House paused, his finger floating above a bishop. He glanced up at Wilson, adding quietly, "I knew I wanted you here. There was nothing more to consider."

"So… Did you… I mean…?"

"You have no idea what you mean, and I have no idea what you're suggesting," House said with forced coyness. He raised a brow and pushed his bishop diagonally forward three spaces. "Say what you mean, Jimmy."

Wordlessly, Wilson leaned over the chessboard and kissed House's lips. It had been an emotionally draining two days, between the birth of his daughter, some faint reconciliation with Julie, and awkwardly straining to include House, who just didn't seem to fit seamlessly into the middle of the new addition. Over the past few hours in particular, Wilson couldn't seem to articulate what he wanted. Actions were easier—and much more believable to House.

Wilson parted just barely, letting a nominal space exist between their mouths where breath and brief touches were exchanged.

"Did you pick me because you liked me?" Wilson asked, barely audible.

"I thought you were extremely qualified."

"Did you _pick_ me because you _liked _me?"

The phone rang abruptly, and Wilson jumped, nearly knocking askew the chess pieces. House reached across the table and, wrapping his fingers in the cloth of Wilson's shirt, guided him around to sit beside him.

House ran a hand through Wilson's hair, still boyishly soft to the touch if less untamable than in years before. "What did you think then?"

"I told my story," Wilson replied as he fingered at House's shirt. "You're the one who took the shortcut on yours."

House wasn't paying attention. He trailed a fleeting path of biting kisses down Wilson's neck until he reached his collarbone, where he sighed, letting the heat dissipate and flood the younger man's chest. "Did you hope I did?"

"What are you two doing?"

House smacked the top of his head on Wilson's chin as he rapidly looked up. Wilson's startled expression faded into a grimace as he rubbed the spot that was soon to be adorned with a welt in a few minutes. The red light was blinking irritably on the telephone as the answering machine continued, Cuddy's voice streaming out of it:

"I called you two _five hours ago_ and you're both still not here. House, lateness is expected from you, but _Wilson_? You're supposed to be the positive influence."

"That's debatable," House grinned as an aside. Wilson disregarded the message with a shrug and leaned back in to House.

"The patient has steadily declined since he's been admitted. Foreman, Chase, and Cameron have been running tests, but nothing's taken root yet. Paralysis, delusions, I don't know what else. We could really use your medical expertise."

"Hypochondria," House murmured offhandedly. Wilson smelled still smelled like soap and cologne; he moved so much more easily when he was tired.

Cuddy's voice,losing its cohesiveness in House's mind,was growing less serious and more sarcastic. "And now they're shutting down the Mets practice field, so if nothing _else _should concern you—"

House stopped, without warning breaking off from Wilson's kiss. "What?"

"—not sure if he picked it up there or brought it in, but they're literally yellow-taping the _entire_ _stadium _until they figure out if it's something—"

"What the hell is she—?"

"—his agent tells me he was a promising rookie, and his athletic trainer has said he's shown no previous symptoms—"

"_House_," Wilson muttered, tugging at his friend's shirt collar impatiently.

"Wait, wait, this is interesting."

Wilson groaned in defeat as House stretched across him and snatched up the phone. The younger man could hear Cuddy rattling off a list of befuddling symptoms and demands as to where they'd been five hours ago when she'd dialed an emergency call to the apartment.

"Our life does not revolve around the hospital," House broke in loftily. "As you know, Dr. Wilson just welcomed his daughter into the world. He's very happy but very tired. And I think he misses her. Ever since he's got back here, he's been having a _hard time_—"

Wilson punched House in the arm at the double entendre, then grinned anyway and pulled himself to his feet. Cuddy was already sounding adamant about their diagonostic help, and House looked more than fascinated even just hearing the details.

"House."

The older man, who was quickly shuffling around the room for his jacket, looked up at Wilson. He allowed himself to be pulled into the oncologist's embrace for another lengthy kiss.

"Jimmy." House pushed lightly but firmly at his chest, finalizing the separation. He gave a small nod of his head and a slight smile. "You can wait. This patient can't."

Sighing, Wilson followed suit and changed into respectable clothes, then joined House at the door. He blinked under the stark brightness of the streetlights against the late night sky, bleeding blue-black. House hurriedly shoveled a spare motorcycle helmet into his friend's hands as they climbed on the bike.

"So. Is he really a Mets rookie, or is this some elaborate scheme to get us to the hospital?"

"Sounds like the real thing. I could hear some disgruntled guy griping about money issues in the background, so there's an agent there if nothing else. Small world, right?" House revved up the motorcycle, doing it one time too many just for show, Wilson knew. "I'm sure our rookie just planned on stopping by the hospital to sign autographs for us. Then that whole 'paralyzed' thing kind of made stuff complicated."

"And our chess game?"

"It'll be waiting when we get back."

Wilson held on to House's shoulders, steadying himself, and didn't get another word in until Princeton-Plainsboro loomed into view.


	4. Chapter 4

Chase was idly twirling a pen between his fingers, intermittently glancing at the clock in the brainstorming room. "No wonder he's not here yet. It's nearly one in the morning. Normal people should be asleep at this time."

"You're implying that House is normal?" Foreman gave a short chuckle and shake of his head as he walked around the desk to drop off to pin up the latest CT scan on the lighted screen. "There's faulty logic."

Cameron inspected the picture from her chair. Nothing immediately stood out. Their baseball player looked to be completely fine cranially. Foreman crossed his arms and staunchly faced the results.

"I'm sure they'll be here soon," Cameron said dismissively.

"They'll?" repeated Chase.

"House and Wilson."

Foreman temporarily glanced away from the scan. "I give that rooming arrangement another week before Wilson cracks. House can only steal so much of his food."

Chase grinned, tapping the pen against his lower lip. "Yeah. House is annoying at work; imagine living in the same _space_ as he does."

"I don't think that's an issue," Cameron offered without thinking.

"What? Just because Wilson needs someone to lean on does not mean House isn't about to take a step back and watch if he falls or not. Come on." Foreman gave a smug, self-assured look. "If Wilson hangs out at the apartment much longer, House will start an observational experiment on him."

"He already wet the bed, I heard," Chase said, amused.

"Well, they're sharing one now, so I don't think you have to worry about that anymore," Cameron said glibly.

Both Foreman and Chase dropped what they were doing. Cameron looked around as if she were surprised they were so shocked.

Chase stared as if she'd just sprouted another head from her shoulder. "Where did you hear that?"

"I didn't. Not exactly. But I was talking with Wilson…"

"Yeah, right, Cameron. Keep entertaining those twisted little fantasies of yours…" Foreman chastised mockingly, but there was a strain in his voice.

"I'm serious. Does it…does it _bother_ you guys to think that they might have a relationship?"

"Just because they're friends doesn't mean that anything else is happening," Chase interrupted hastily. "Can we, uh, get back to the diagnosis now?"

Cameron stared at Chase for a second as a smile slipped across her face. "You're _blushing_, Chase."

"And a patient's _dying_," Chase snapped. He gestured back to the CT scan, tossing the pen back onto the table. "And there's nothing there. It's not neurotic."

"No, but House will be if we don't find _something_ to go off of," Foreman cut in. Cameron shook her head at how quickly they'd ended the previous conversation. "Come on. The patient presents with paralysis, delusions, vomiting, and fever, and we can't come up with a theory?"

Cameron exchanged a raised eyebrow with Chase, whose color had toned down. Foreman might have gotten a new pair of sneakers that differed from House's, but in ways he was still cut from the same cloth House was. At times antagonistic for the good of the order, demanding, focused.

And he had a proclivity for dominating the white board.

Retrieving the pen as if for moral support, Chase cocked his head to the side, letting his blond hair fall in wisps into his eyes. "How about an ugly strain of the flu?"

Foreman rolled his eyes. "He's _paralyzed_."

"Could be unrelated."

"Then what caused the paralysis?" Cameron asked.

"He's a baseball player and no one's going to suggest Lou Gehrig's Disease?"

The interns looked up as House limped in, Wilson trailing hardly a step behind him. Cameron watched Chase and Foreman carefully; only Chase went back to fiddling with his pen. Foreman shot a glare at Cameron, just daring her to open her mouth.

House dug out a Vicodin and Wilson leaned up against a nearby wall, an unsuspicious distance away. The older man swallowed, then elaborated, "ALS causes spinal cord degeneration and weakness in the limbs."

"It also doesn't usually onset until middle age, and the patient is _nineteen_ years old," Cameron replied.

"Besides, there's neurological degeneration that would have appeared in the scan," Foreman added, frowning. "It's not ALS."

"Blood samples?" Wilson prompted.

Chase hesitated for a split second, skimming Wilson's face. "Uh... Nothing noteworthy. A little low on the vitamins, but that's to be expected. He lived in poverty all his life."

"Oh, something of your expertise," House chided. Chase gave him an exasperated look, but House was shuffling forward, snatching the black marker out of Foreman's hand and reclaiming the white board. "So I take it you got a medical history on this guy?"

The room fell into an awkward silence, and House turned around, his gaze critically bouncing from one intern to another.

"A _medical history_? You know, those things that tell us about the patient so we have some background?"

"You mean those things you never use?" retorted Foreman.

"No, those would be _interns_. Medical histories actually serve a purpose."

"We couldn't get a medical history," Cameron explained. "The patient just moved here from Puerto Rico a month ago, when he signed his contact."

"No papers? Come on, Puerto Rico means he's an American citizen, whether or not he pays taxes or gets any of those U.S. 'rights.'"

"His family was killed in a mudslide this past spring."

"The _entire family_? Have you _seen_ the size of your typical Spanish family? Unless the mudslide plopped down in the middle of a ten-year reunion, you can't tell me he has no survivors."

"Thirty-four people in three houses, side-by-side, right at the base of the ridge," Foreman confirmed.

"And where was Slugger when this happened?"

"Interviewing with a Mets representative outside of town," Chase said.

"Hmm. Interesting pick of fate, then, isn't it?"

Cameron's eyes flashing knowingly. "I thought you didn't believe in fate."

"I believe fate sent our Bat Boy here."

"Really." Cameron watched him, dubiously. "So we could save him?"

"Yes. And then the Mets would give me free season tickets above the dugout in their eternal thanks." He poked his cane to the ceiling. "Some _mysterious_ workings going on up there."

Wilson, who was busy scanning the CT, had his hands on his hips. "Nice when fate's on your side, isn't it?" he commented distantly.

"All right, so there's no medical history. How do you know anything about the patient then?"

"His agent told us that—"

House threw up his hands dramatically. "His _agent_? And you _believed_ him?"

"He's the only one the patient has here—"

"Does the name 'Drew Rosenhaus' mean _anything _to you?"

Foreman grinned at Cameron's befuddled expression. "I guarantee you not. House, look, the guy just talked with the patient's athletic trainer. There's been no early onset of any of these symptoms."

House frowned, lowering his chin to his chest in his iconic thinking stance. He sighed, his voice gravelly in concentration. "So when did they first appear?"

"At about seven tonight," Foreman relayed. "He was doing some solo field hitting in the Mets practice facility and apparently collapsed. Some lighting technicians found him about an hour later and called an ambulance. They cleared everyone out after that."

"All right." House lifted his head, tapping his cane imperviously against the floor. "Let's go have a chat with Slugger."


	5. Chapter 5

The nametag on the end of the bed read _Javier Carlos Arroyo Delgado_. House absent-mindedly tapped the paper with his information clipboard and peered over the patient.

"With a name like that, you _have _to be a baseball player. How about I just call you Slugger? No? Not the nickname you wanted for the Bigs? Fine, have it your way. Delgado, then."

The patient made little response. His jet-black hair fell in waves over his sweat-laced forehead. The rest of his long, rail-thin body looked just as clammy, making his copper skin dull and dusty. He blinked a few times, then sighed like his entire body was caving in, and closed his dark orbs again.

A hand tugged at House's elbow, and the doctor couldn't have known who it was sooner if the grasp had been slicked with posing charisma.

"You must be Dr. House." He shook his hand forcefully. "Frank Balleta"

"And _you_ must be the agent. I can smell the money on you."

He was younger than House had anticipated, but not by much. Maybe it was the botox. At a second glance, yes, most definitely the botox. No one has skin that looks so smooth you could ice skate on it, especially when their hair is salt-and-peppered and toupee is ghastly enough to make baldness the 'Do of the Year.

At least, House thought, the agent had enough respect to distract people from his face to his suit. The blazer was a shade of yellow the likes of which no earthly soul had seen and lived to tell. House grimaced. The agent either didn't care or interpreted it as a smile.

"What's the diagnosis?"

"Well, Mr. Balleta, It looks to be fatal."

"Oh my God."

"Not Delgado. I mean your suit."

The agent laugh bubbled out of his profuse chest and tainted the air. He slapped a thick had on House's shoulders, and House contemplated hitting him with a cane. He was nearly two patient complaints behind this week; he couldn't lose his touch, after all.

"So, the boy's going to be fine?"

"Yeah. Just roll him up in a wheelchair to the batter's box. Fans love the underdog."

Although his lips were still pulled into a plastic grin, the expression failed to reach Balleta's eyes. "Seriously, doc. Can you fix him?"

"Can I fix him," House repeated with a guffaw, like it was a silly question to even think of asking. He wandered around to the other side of the bed, observing the patient for a split second. Suddenly, he looked up as if it had just come to him.

"We believe that it might be a somatoform disorder."

"A _what_?"

Cameron, Foreman, and Chase broke their silence from the foot of the patient's bed.

"But House—" Foreman tried.

House held up a hand. "He's in an unfamiliar place, away from home, his family just died, and now he has to deal with _you_." He poked his cane in the direction of the agent.

"You mean…"Balleta floundered. "_I_ gave him this some-a-foam?"

"Somatoform," Cameron said gently. "It's—it's not contagious. It's just a fancy medical term for hysteria." She threw an uncertain glance toward House. "You think it's all in his head?"

"Hysteria. _Hmm_. That's a funny word if you think about it. Did you know 'hysteria' actually comes from the Greek root meaning 'uterus'? They had this _crazy_ theory that women were bitchy because their uterus would move around in their body." House turned from Cameron to the Balleta, reveling in the confused, borderline-terrified look that had fallen across his pristinely artificial face. "That's since been debunked, of course, but we're no closer to establishing why women are just so darn annoying."

Chase ran an uncomfortable hand through his hair. "But Mr. Delgado is exhibiting _physical _signs of an illness."

"That's typical of somatoform," Wilson acknowledged, unbiased. "But the source of physical strain is actually psychological, and since the CT and PET scans have shown nothing, this _could_ be all up in his head."

The agent's mouth blubbered for a moment, vacant of words. House took the opportunity.

He waved his cane in mock-mysticism over the patient. "Rise, take up your bat, and walk!"

Chase rolled his eyes. He'd had enough. "Nice, House. You quote Scriptures and we'll take a CAT scan. Come on, Foreman."

House acknowledged the decision with a nod, and watched suspiciously as the three young doctors skittered out of the room with another medical procedure to schedule. The agent had since yanked out his cell phone and retreated outside the room. House glanced over at Wilson, who stood with his hands shoved in the pockets of his lab coat.

"What's up with our Aussie?"

Wilson shrugged. He went to walk past House, but the older man caught the lapels of his coat and tugged him close for a brief instant.

"House, what are you—?"

"I thought you'd want me to return that kiss from before."

"Not _here_," Wilson hissed, pulling back. He glanced warily down at Delgado, but he still had his eyes closed and had apparently drifted off to sleep. Out the glass windows, just barely shielded by the half-turned blinds, he could see Balleta waddling back and forth, lost in animated conversation on the cell.

"You're adamant about keeping this a secret, aren't you?" House asked, his face expressionless.

"I never said that."

"You never said otherwise."

Wilson sighed. "Look. There's a time for this, and it isn't now. You're the one who wanted to get involved in this case anyway, so here we are."

"Okay. When is it the time, then?"

"When…" Wilson sighed. "When we figure out what's messing with this kid. If it is somatoform—"

"It's not," House said assuredly.

Wilson furrowed his brows. "But I thought you just said…?"

"That's to calm down our agent buddy out there. No, this is legitimately physical."

"How can you tell?"

House nodded to the bed. "Abdominal bleeding."

Shocked, Wilson lifted up the bedsheet, and revealed a spreading, red stain that House had not seen but diagnosed regardless. Wilson was just about to call for meds when the patient's eyes shot open into huge, round, glazed discs.

He seized Wilson's forearm. His mouth, dry and crackling, muttered words just as coarse to the ear. His eyes spilled over with an unnerving urgency. Wilson tried to pull away but couldn't. The kid tugged on Wilson's arm as if he knew him.

"Deep center field. Get there, _ahora_. Left field. _Apresúrese_!"


	6. Chapter 6

Thanks for reviewing, everyone! It's nice to get the feedback--and I'm glad you're enjoying the story. :)

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"_Apresúrese. _Translation: Hurry up."

Chase looked reclusively back toward House from over top of the open Spanish manual he'd dug out from one of the book cabinets. House was busy leaning his weight on the cane, staring at a spot on the floor while he pondered. Foreman was busy wheeling Javier Delgado into the CAT scan room; Cameron had the straining job of communicating with the young man's agent, who had apparently taken guardian duties. Wilson had slipped off to visit with Julie and care for his daughter in the maternity ward on the next floor.

"Spanish with the Australian accent is really an interesting blend," House commented. He sighed and shifted his cane to his other side, consulting the wall. "Now. What do you think Slugger meant by all that rambling?"

"I heard he was talking to Wilson."

"He would've said the same thing to anyone within hearing range," House replied. "Apparently, a part of him still thinks he's firing shots into the outfield."

"What about the bleeding?"

"Stopped it, for now. Gave him some clotting meds and he patched up long enough for Foreman to run the CAT scan. We should have the results within an hour." House popped a Vicodin into his mouth. The pills, clinking against the plastic container, emphasized the suppressing quiet. "So who killed your wombat?"

"What?"

"Well, you're obviously irked over _something_. Or are you going for the Troubled, Angsty Doctor routine to try and win over some girl?"

Chase warily averted his eyes and drew himself to his feet. "I have to go."

"And do what? Fix your hair?"

The tautness in Chase's jaw was rather perplexing. "Consult Mr. Balleta."

"Cameron's doing that."

"Not very well, I'm willing to bet," Chase muttered, and was out the door before House managed to get another word in.

House sighed, glancing at his mute pager. No news from Foreman, no questions from Cameron, no consult from Wilson. After some thought, he text messaged the oncologist, then turned his attention to his computer.

---------------------------

"Computer chess?"

House smirked at Wilson as the oncologist pulled up a seat beside him, behind the desk.

"It's exactly where we left off."

"Is it?" Wilson scanned the screen, a bit doubtfully. "You didn't take any extra pieces of mine away?"

"No. Those are stories you have to tell. I'm not about to shortchange you."

"And…you didn't keep that horse I captured from you?"

"Like I said, horses are stupid. Look. I even deleted my queen, like before."

"Ah, yes, your security net of an excuse for when I finally beat you."

"I believe it's my move." House reached for the mouse, then clicked one of his pawns forward a square. "So…how was your kid?"

"Sleeping and crying. Mostly crying. Feeding. I guess it's all they do for the first few months."

"Yep. Then they start talking… _and_ sleeping and crying and feeding. Very interesting process, really."

Wilson grinned and impulsively moved his remaining bishop. "You should have seen her. She already knows how to hold onto our fingers."

House bit his tongue and resisted the urge to remind him that a baby grasping anything is actually just a sporadic muscle movement, similar to a spasm. She's not yet in control of her actions.

"That's nice," House said.

"She's got a lot of hair already too, though she'll probably lose it in the upcoming weeks."

"Dark, wasn't it?"

"Yeah. Coffee-brown almost."

"Black, no sugar," House said as he clicked a rook forward.

Wilson kept smiling as he chose again to move his bishop. Annoyed, House stared at him.

"Either you lied about being a chess champ or you're not paying attention."

"What?"

"Are you intentionally trying to give me your pieces?"

Wilson reexamined his move, which didn't seem particularly bad or good. He was tired and happy, that was all. A chess game seemed like a relatively nominal thing at the moment.

House sighed disgustedly at Wilson's daft move, but captured the bishop anyway. "All right. Story time."

Wilson battled a yawn. "Can it wait? I think I'm going to lie down for a bit."

"Maybe you should've thought about that before you made a crappy move." House stared at him, unrelenting. "Besides, we're going to have the CAT scan results soon, so you might as well stay up."

Wilson closed his eyes for a brief moment. Then, humoring his friend, he stretched out his arms and sighed, wishing his fatigue could just as easily filter out of him. Nonchalantly, as if to make up for his sudden retreat from earlier, Wilson rested his head on House's shoulder. The older man glanced around in surprise, wondering if Wilson realized that the blinds were wide open for everyone to see.

Wilson's breath felt warm against the thin fabric of House's shirt. His lips just brushed against the material. "Go ahead. What story do you want to hear?"

"Tell me about your internship. The original one you had, back home." He wanted to stroke his hands through Wilson's hair, massage the contours of his back, but decided not to push his luck. He wondered if Wilson would have protested.

-------------------------

_Wilson _

Home had become a distant four-letter word to me. My life was now consumed with practicing medicine. I wasn't just the scrawny, book-smart kid I'd been when I left. I was more secure, more confident, much more well-rounded. I had eight years worth of new experiences, but time had also shaped me into a stranger to my family and old friends.

At some moments, I felt like I'd stolen someone else's skin and had crawled inside, living a life that wasn't mine.

Our townhouse was drastically smaller and dimmer than I'd remembered. The walls faded to an earthly off-yellow, not the bright glow I'd recalled from summers spent sprawling about the living room with nothing better to do than lounge. That first week back, I'd followed my well-traveled bike path back to the park. But a new fleet of young faces occupied the baseball fields my friends and I had owned, marring the russet sand with their own cleat marks. The township had replaced the soft, worn bags with solid, profession bases. Actual leagues dominated the fields every other day, kicking out the neighborhood kids who used to wander in just to play some pick-up games. Huge lights loomed around the park, meddling with nightfall and competing with the lazy stars of summer for control of the skies. The lights always won out.

My older brother had just gotten promoted in the Navy and decided to make a career out of it. Ian was gone; his disappearance nearly tore the family apart, which was another reason why I had to come home. My parents needed to see at least one of their sons. It was the least I could give them.

It was a two-and-a-half-hour drive to get to the hospital where I'd accepted my first internship. It was a shell of a place, really, outdated and archaic by any standards, but it provided a steady income and I had a fair share of college loans to pay back. I wasn't going to be picky; I took a spot doing some filing and worked my way up to what became more of a fellowship position. My boss was the resident Head of Oncology at the hospital, and although the department consisted of only five or so actual doctors, he took himself and our responsibilities very seriously.

With our limited resources, the most we could ever really do was diagnose a patient and then recommend another hospital—one of our affiliates—for further treatment. Then we'd spend weeks studying each individual case, making up reports, and writing essays hoping for publication in some medical journal. You'd consider it tedious. It was, actually. But it was work and it took my mind off of things.

I'm sure you want to know about my boss. He was…well, he was skilled as a doctor; there's no denying that. But he was brusque without reason, self-centered in trivial ways that you're not. If you're selfish, it's the kind of narrow-mindedness that is in everyone's best interest. I know that doesn't sound like it makes sense, but you know what I mean. That's just how you are. It's natural. For him, it was an act. Condescension without necessity. I would have disliked him more if I didn't need the job.

I panicked again. It hit me late one night when I was taking the bus from the hospital back to my house. We passed the old baseball fields where my brothers and I would practically camp out during the summer, and it felt like a metal rod just punctured right through my chest. I felt heavy, suspended by forces beyond my control. The field lights charred my eyes.

In haste, I contemplated returning to college, keeping my life in unperturbed limbo for another year, eighteen months, _anything_ to avoid the compressing reality. I had status in school; I had respect. I had _your_ respect. Back home, I was still the same uncoordinated, awkward kid, destined to be victimized by the hierarchy of random luck. My boss thought he was better than me, so he was. My parents were preoccupied with their absent sons, and I struggled to fill up a gap that I couldn't. The few close friends I had back in high school had moved. My hometown was desolate, stifling with stale memories.

I realized I missed you more than I should have, and it bothered me. Thinking maybe everything would somehow sort out, I dated a young nurse who had earned her fellowship at the hospital under the trauma unit. It was the first long-term relationship I'd ever had. Two years, it lasted, and then she met up with some guy from another department in the hospital. I don't know which one; she never really told me, I never really asked. He apparently had a house under construction and was just offered a well-paying position out of state. He took it; she went with him.

She hadn't needed me. Next time, I promised myself, I would find someone who did the needing instead.

My parents will tell you if you ask them; over the next few months or so I had a strange bout of sleepwalking. I'd been a sound sleeper all my life, but suddenly I couldn't stay still. In the morning, I'd wake up curled on the stairs or stretched out on the dining room linoleum. Once, I'd fumbled all the way to the crawlspace and managed to get to the roof, even though storage boxes had had blocked the door.

I opened my eyes and was greeted with unabashed sky, unmitigated as it stretched overhead in bottomless blue shades. For uncounted minutes, I was neither thinking nor sleeping—just being, and being without.

I was twenty-five years old and still living with my parents, still living in my hometown, still living under obligations that no longer applied to me anymore. I packed up that morning and impulsively took a bus eastward. A part of me pretended I was going back to college; another part pretended I was going back to you. Some rational aspect reminded me that I had to find a job and an apartment. I did the latter and submitted my resume to a series of hospitals by the end of the week.

You called me that Tuesday. I remember, because I was in the middle of brushing the taste of coffee from my teeth in the cramped bathroom when the phone shrilly went off. It was a clunky brown phone, one with a cord that insisted on staying tangled no matter what I did. It was always cool to the touch in the morning, because it set right under the window. Open or closed, wind always snuck through the cracks.

Your voice sounded like it was derived from snippets of college flashbacks. I had to remind myself that I'd applied for a fellowship to begin with. It seemed so long ago; I'd been so many different people in the meantime. I wondered how much you had changed, but a few wry jokes later, I knew you were the same.

My stomach was more twisted than the phone cord by the time I'd hung up. I lied down on the bed and stared at the crackling ceiling, counting the uneven ripples and seeing your face between every one of them. Confusion tugged at my conscience; doubt strung its restrictions over my anticipation. Of course I couldn't expect anything in return from you—I hardly knew how to sort out my own emotions. Maybe I was just vacant and needing space to be filled. Maybe familiarity would fix everything. Maybe. Maybe so many things.

I forgot to go to work, which was all right, because I made a lousy doctor's office bookkeeper and could quit now anyway.

I called my parents and told them I was moving to Princeton-Plainsboro. My father had to review a map to figure out where that was.

_End _

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Halfway through the story, House had picked up his red and gray baseball for something to do with his hands, and somewhere to turn his eyes when Wilson's voice trailed or wavered slightly, or revealed depths that House himself was not willing to return in kind. Leaning back on his swivel chair, the older man observed Wilson carefully. The oncologist had sat up from his slouch midway through the story, and was now trying to re-exam the chessboard. House could see that Wilson was hardly even looking at it.

House lobbed the ball in the air and caught it in his palm. "'The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation,'" he commented quietly.

Wilson turned his head toward his friend, offering a drowsy smile. "Thoreau."

"You're well read, Doctor. Or you have one of those quote-a-day calendars."

The younger man chuckled, and House chanced lightly wrapping an arm around his waist. Wilson relaxed momentarily.

"The question is," House began slowly, "why is Slugger so desperate? 'Hurry up' seems pretty insistent."

"Mmm."

House tilted his head forward so he could see Wilson's eyes. The computer had stolen his attention again.

Wilson glanced over the screen anxiously, like someone who had just gotten the bills and knew they didn't have to be paid for a couple weeks. He rubbed at the back of his neck, blinking to stay awake. "Look, House… If you don't need me here anymore, I think I'm going to go back over to the maternity ward."

The red and gray baseball felt particularly lifeless in his hands. Tossing it around indiscriminately, House nodded, just barely, as he uncurled his arm from Wilson's side. "Right. Yeah, go ahead. Say hi to the baby for me."

"Page me if anything changes, all right?" Wilson, halfway out the door, peeked his head back in as he leaned around the corner.

"Go, go," House said with an ushering gesture of his hands. He tried a smile that didn't quite set right on his face.

As Wilson disappeared down the corridor, House shuffled through his CD collection before finding something decent to pop into the computer. The headphones were on in seconds, and he intuitively tapped out the piano parts on his desk.

He'd only made it to midway through the third track of the CD when he noticed Cameron hovering outside of his doorway. Brilliant interior designers, House thought sarcastically. It's impossible to ignore someone when they're standing beyond glass windows.

House glanced up, and Cameron took the initiative to enter without invitation.


	7. Chapter 7

"Hey. Can I come in?"

"You already are."

Stiffly, House moved his legs from their propped position on his swivel chair. The cane provided an extra limb as he pulled himself to his feet. His headphones were the last to go.

"What were you listening to?" Cameron asked.

"You wouldn't know and I can tell you don't especially care." House ejected the CD from the computer drive and returned it to its case. "What do you want?"

Cameron tapped her fingernails on the desk. She shifted from foot to foot like she had expected to say something else, but then her mind rerouted last second. "The CAT scan came back. It's definitely not neurotic. Foreman called in Wilson…" She waited for House's expression to change; when it didn't, she continued, "…but he couldn't find any cancerous growths. No cists, either. Delgado is clean."

House rubbed at his temples. "So whatever it is isn't in the brain." He shook his, annoyed thatthe answer was cleverly evading them. "All right. So the kid's head isn't a chemical freak show. No abnormal growths. Review the symptoms again."

"He's paralyzed."

"That seems to be popular. Anyone take pictures of the spine?"

"When he came in. Negative for slipped discs, fractures, breaks. He's got a perfectly healthy backbone."

House raised an amused eyebrow at her. "Unlike some people."

"What?" Cameron baulked slightly."_Me_?"

"Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying you're wishy-washy. I'm just saying you've got the spin cycle set."

"House, what are you talking about?"

The older man tapped his cane thoughtfully as he considered. "I have to admit, though, I'm surprised. You only told Foreman and Chase. I was expecting a _Congratulations, House and Wilson_ banner to be hung in front of every department."

"Sorry to have disappointed you."

"I don't know how I'm going to get over it."

House wrapped the cord around his headphones and set them off to the side. The chess game on the computer, waiting for such an extended period, had tiredly asked whether or not the players wanted to quit. _Click Yes or Cancel_. House ignored the popup until the screensaver came on, and then he ignored the screensaver. Someone had switched it from a constellation of flying stars to monster trucks. Oh, yes. He'd done that last week.

"I don't see why that makes me 'wishy-washy,' and I don't know why you have to act like it should be this big secret…"

"Did I say that? No, I don't think so. See, what makes _you_ spineless is that you most likely stuck up for Wilson and me with the boys, but yet come here with that uncomfortable doubt smeared across your face. Am I right?"

Cameron hesitated.

"If you have a question, ask it. I can't read minds. I'm good, but telepathy takes some time to master."

"Are…"

"This should be interesting. Let me guess: Yes, we are, and yes, the sex is good."

"No. Are—are you jealous?"

"Jealous?"

"Yes. Of Wilson, and the baby."

House melodramatically pouted his lip and crinkled his eyes. "You see right through me," he lamented, mock-wounded. "It's no fair that _he_ gets to be the one changing diapers and paying for college."

Cameron's lips thinned as she pursed her mouth. "It's not necessarily a bad thing, jealousy. It's natural."

"Thanks, Doctor Feel-Good. Is our session over now? Next you'll be tossing me Freudian advice." He leaned forward. "You know, he used to give his patients cocaine. Did _wonders_."

That was the thing about pushing Cameron. Eventually, she just recoiled and curled back into her own little world of perfection and hope, where everything had potential and fulfillment.

"He cares about you, House. But Julie gave him someone he could love, too. That's not a small thing."

"You expect me to do the same? I'll have you know, we've been trying for quite some time now…"

Cameron's cheeks colored, but she smiled just as readily, even if her eyes drifted. "If you love him, you can share that love."

House rolled his eyes defensively. "I find it hard to believe that _you're_ not jealous," he retorted.

"I told you," Cameron said simply, deadpanned and simplistically unemotional. "I'm over you. I just… I just want you to be happy."

"_Pff_. Yeah. It doesn't hurt so much when it's not a woman taking your place, does it?"

"Love is love either way," Cameron replied evenly. "Why should it be different?"

She was halfway done speaking when suddenly both their pages rang out. House muttered a curse as he quickly got to his feet and hobbled out the door, Cameron right in stride.

"So glad someone decided to check out Slugger's _heart_," House muttered. "At least cardiac arrest might distract him from his legs."

-----------------------------

The interns, Wilson, and House had regrouped back in the whiteboard room after they managed to get Delgado stabilized. Chase was posting the latest heart scan onto the lighted screen. House shook his head, grumbling to himself.

Cameron reviewed the picture, shaking her head in consternation. "You mean to tell me Major League Baseball gave this guy a physical and missed the fact that his heart is one size too big?"

"They like that extra hustle," House said snidely. "Steroids, no way. But heart problems? Hey, what the hell."

"Balleta insists he didn't know about it," Chase said tiredly. He rested his forehead on his folded hands.

"Balleta wants a paycheck. What did Delgado's athletic trainer say?"

"We can't get a hold of him. He's not answering his cell or his office phone," said Foreman.

"Well, it's five-thirty," Chase pointed out with veiled importance as he rubbed his own eyes. "Here's an idea: Maybe the guy's _asleep_."

House dramatically rapped his cane on the table with a shattering bang. Chase immediately perked up. "No, good guys never sleep," House proclaimed.

Chase grimaced, a headache shooting through his temples as he sarcastically rebutted, "I thought they just died young."

"Well who said the athletic trainer was fighting for justice anyway?" House looked doubtfully at the blond. "And where did _that _come from? New rule: No referencing songs that were written before you were born. And written in a different _country_."

Foreman sighed loudly, crossing his arms. "House, the patient's stable. No one can think if we're tired."

"You know what happens when you assume…" lilted House.

"Right. But because we were exhausted last night we could've missed signs that pointed to a heart problem in the first place."

House regarded Foreman wordlessly for a second. The intern steadily returned his stance, refusing to waver.

"Fine." House nodded after a pause. "Go home and take a nap, shower so I don't have to smell you. Foreman, Cameron—I want you two to go scope out the Mets practice field. Find out who those lighting technicians were who found Slugger in the first place. Take some samples. Get back here for nine o'clock. And Cameron…"

House rummaged through a bookcase nearby, then slid a heavy encyclopedia across the table towards her. She picked up the cumbersome volume.

"_A History of Baseball's Greatest Players_?"

"Know your patient. I'll expect a thorough report when you're done reading."

She rolled her eyes but took the book in a humoring gesture anyway. Chase watched, disgruntled, as the other two left.

"And what am I supposed to do?"

"Go home and sleep off your bad mood. Then I want you to review some medical history on Delgado with Dr. Wilson."

Even Wilson raised an eyebrow. Chase stammered,

"What—what medical history? The kid doesn't have any."

"I want you two to talk to him. Wilson's a better manipulator than people give him credit for, and I'm sure Slugger will find your accent simply _charming_. Sweet-talk him. Just because he doesn't have legal medical papers doesn't mean he personally doesn't know a few things about his background."

"House," Wilson broke in quietly after a moment. "He told the interns that he didn't know about his heart condition, either."

"I'd shut up about it too if it would keep me from a big league paycheck. Oh, wait a minute—I'd much rather starve in my hometown." House looked pointedly at him. "The kid was desperate for a second chance away from home. Imagine. What would _you _be willing to do?"

Wilson gazed at House for longer than he should have, then slowly gathered his papers together. Chase reluctantly followed.


	8. Chapter 8

The hospital clocks clicked to eight-thirty. Delgado looked less like an aspiring baseball player and more like a frightened stray animal when Wilson and Chase stopped to see him.

"Hey, Javier. How you doing?" Chase tried. He may not have been thrilled to be excommunicated from Foreman and Cameron, but he was refreshed from sleep. He stuck his hands in his pockets, and Wilson took a seat bedside.

Delgado mumbled a bit. His vitals were wavering, but relatively stable. They'd given him some heart medication and the internal bleeding subsided hours ago. Only the vomiting and paralysis remained. Wilson noticed that his eyes were puffy, too, but crying could have done that, and the oncologist wasn't about to doubt how terrified the young man was.

"Okay," Delgado managed weakly. His English was rough but not incomprehensible, so long as no one fired ridiculous medical terms at him. He raised a hand, bringing a jungle of tubes with it. "Do I go?"

"I'm afraid not yet," Chase said. "We're going to need your help to get you better."

The patient sighed, closing his eyes momentarily. "Okay."

"Javier. We know that your heart problem caused the cardiac arrest." Chase gestured to the vitals indicator next to him, and Delgado nodded, remembering the events of earlier that morning. "But it does not explain why you can't walk, or any of your other symptoms."

Wilson kept his eyes turned downward until Chase finished, then he looked at Delgado. "Do you know anything else about your body—problems, past illness?—that might have caused this?"

Delgado's eyes were glazed as he shook his head. He did a double-take at Wilson. "N-No. No problem. First time."

"Were you ever sick before?"

"No. Not like this."

Wilson took a breath, furrowing his eyes in dedicated attention. "Did anyone in your family ever have trouble walking?" he asked gently. "Was anyone ever sick like you are now?"

A rueful laugh caught in Delgado's throat. "Everyone gets sick. Everyone dies. Just not like this. I was to make them proud." He shook his head. "No. Everyone walked. Not ever sick like this."

"Did anyone you know of outside of your family show these symptoms?"

Delgado kept shaking his head. "No. I come here, I get sick. Everything is fine in Puerto Rico. We have parties, we dance, cook, have fun. Play baseball. I come here…"

"Javier, this is really important. If there's anything you're not telling us…" Wilson paused empathetically, patting the young man's arm with reassurance. "Anything could help us help you right now."

Delgado stared at Wilson for a time, then blinked, turning his head to the side of the pillow.

Chase rubbed the back of his neck and sighed.

-----------

"Self-pity isn't exactly emotional penicillin," Chase muttered dryly as he and Wilson made their way from the patient's room and into the hall.

Wilson frowned. "A bit hard to be optimistic given his current condition." He reviewed the notes he'd taken throughout the conversation. "Well, he's vomiting. Could be a viral string of something; maybe it diffused down to his legs during internal bleeding, messed with his nervous system."

"But the blood samples didn't show anything."

Wilson shrugged, handing him a small vial of blood to test. "You said it yourself; you were tired. Maybe you missed something."

"Why does everyone always think _I'm_ the one who screwed up?" Chase scowled.

"Because you're always so convinced that you didn't."

Chase followed Wilson back into the oncologist's office, the blood sample clenched grudgingly in his palm. "And I don't appreciate these little games House thinks he can play whenever he wants."

Wilson looked up, surprised. The door shut halfway, leaving a stretch of off-white office light sprawling through the opening. It fell into a bright, glimmering streak across the room. "What makes you think he's playing games?"

"Separating me from Cameron and Foreman."

"He probably just wanted another intern to spend time with the patient."

"_No_, he wanted me to spend time with _you_."

The stack of papers clicked hollowly as Wilson tapped them on his desk, straightening the pile. "Uh… Why would he want that?"

"Because he knows it bothers—" Chase suddenly snapped his mouth shut, realizing what he'd almost blurted out. Almost immediately, he turned to leave.

"Dr. Chase—"

The blond whirled around, his face levitating somewhere between annoyance and hesitation. "I mean, it's not like you two have been _subtle _about it."

"About what?" Wilson watched him carefully, reserved.

Although the interns had been working at the hospital for about a year, Wilson acknowledged he was sketchy on the details of their lives and personalities—the Australian, in particular. He was at equal times refined, spoiled, and introspective, moral. Still, he didn't know enough, and Wilson was not willing to dive into his own personal life on a mere guess of the young man's suspicions.

"About _what_," Chase repeated mockingly, rolling his eyes so that they were almost lost in his wayward bangs. He gave a short laugh—then abruptly leaned in and pecked Wilson impassively on his lips.

Wilson stared, his limbs gone numb.

"Now bugger off," Chase snapped, leaving the room and the oncologist, speechless.

----------------

"So this…is a baseball field."

"No. A true one was _Field of Dreams_, with the cornstalks surrounding the baseball diamond."

Cameron stared, and Foreman's shoulders sagged a bit.

"Never mind. Great movie, though." He spread his arms in false grandeur. "This is a corporate idea of what baseball should look like."

Cameron didn't really know what to say. "A lot of cement."

Foreman chuckled. They'd been at the Mets practice facility for the past half hour, collecting samples of grass, dirt, sand, and scrapings from the fence and bleachers. It would have to be analyzed, of course, but nothing struck either of them as out-of-the-ordinary. The stadium was emptied, thanks to the CAUTION yellow tape strung around the building. Grass had been neatly mowed two days ago, and the spotless outfield lay in empty, checkerboard fashion, alternating between light and dark shades of green.

A familiar figure was jogging down the stadium bleachers to meet them. Cameron squinted against the early morning sun.

"Chase? What are you doing here?"

"I thought you were with Wilson," Foreman added.

Chase crossed the field towards them, his jacket bunching up around his shoulders as he shrugged. He scanned the field. "Finished up. Find anything here?"

"Some samples. Nothing much," replied Foreman.

Chase nodded, not really listening. For lack of anything better to say, he rambled,

"So…this is a baseball field?"

Cameron smiled at the Australian. At least they were in the same boat when it came to American pastimes. "Nope. That would be _Meadow of Thoughts_."

"_Field of Dreams_," Foreman corrected, wincing at the horrible error. "You're not reading House's baseball book fast enough, Cameron. Speaking of House…" Foreman turned back toward Chase, cocking a wry eyebrow. "How was Wilson?"

"Here we go," Cameron griped. She whisked the bag of gleaned samples from Foreman's hand and started collecting her own. "Weren't you the one who wanted to stop talking about this?"

Foreman held up his hands. "Hey, you started it with your cryptic comments."

"There's nothing wrong with falling in love with your best friend," Cameron retorted stubbornly.

Chase, meanwhile, was poking around the grass blades with his shoe, intermittently looking from the far fence, to the Budweiser advertisement over the scoreboard, and back to the clean-swept outfield.

"Uh, there _is_ when it's House and Wilson," he muttered. "Did you guys find those lighting techs yet?"

"I don't know why you're freaking it," Foreman interrupted. "You have a thing for chicks who burn themselves."

Chase started to defend himself, but Cameron spared him the trouble.

"I don't think that's it. This isn't experimental for them," she reasoned. "I think they really love each other."

Foreman smiled, as if humoring what he viewed as her naivety. "It's always about love for you, isn't it, Cameron?"

"Well, what do _you_ think?"

"I think it's none of our business."

It was the best comment Chase had heard in a while. "Good. I agree. Let's drop it then."

Foreman rescued his bag of samples again from Cameron, holding it up to the field lights as if for further inspection. He stuffed the tweasers back into his bag and peeled off his gloves. Cameron did the same, ready to leave, but she couldn't get over the smug look on Foreman's face.

"I can't believe you guys," she muttered.

"Look." The gloves made a quick snapping noise. Foreman pocketed them, then handed Chase a bag of extra samples to carry. "I'm not saying it's _wrong_, I'm just saying it's… I don't know. Chase?"

The blond glanced up quickly, taking the bag. The grass inside looked almost blue from the tinted color of the airtight container.

"Uh—awkward?"

"Yeah. I mean, like I said, none of my business, but…"

Cameron realized she wasn't going to change their minds. At least they weren't gung-ho against it. Still. Indifference wasn't the same as being for it, either. "Well, _I _think it's a good thing."

"You're just happy because everyone else is happy," Chase finally said.

"Isn't that reason enough?"

---------

It was just after eleven when the interns made it back to Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital. Wilson and House were in the midst of a thorough baseball debate in the whiteboard room.

"Jews aren't exactly brimming over with athletic prowess," House was saying as he tossed his baseball over to Wilson.

The oncologist caught it, spinning it around in his palm, reflectively. "Sandy Koufax?"

House snabbed the ball out of the air as Wilson tossed it back in his direction. "All right, I'll give you that one. Koufax" He rolled his eyes patronizingly. "But I'm willing to bet you were pelted with your share of dodge balls in gym class."

Wilson smiled but said nothing to discredit the assumption. He glanced at the clock, still managing just barely to catch the ball House chucked at him, testing to see if he was really paying attention.

The oncologist held up the ball, reiterating that he'd improved since sixth grade Phys. Ed. "I think I'm going to head down to the cafeteria. Want to come?"

"No. The ducklings should be back any minute. Then maybe we'll be able to put Slugger on something besides his heart meds and neurotransmitters. You know. Something to fix that whole 'can't-walk' thing?"

"All right." Wilson lobbed the baseball back. For a split second, he almost mentioned Chase, and then he decided to let it go for a bit longer. He still hadn't made sense of it yet. He didn't want House to do the poking and prodding before he'd sorted out the bizarre event himself. Lunch was an easier topic at the moment. "Do you want me to bring you back a Reuben or something?"

"Nah. I'll pick up something somewhere, sometime." House glanced up. "Hey, Foreman. Catch!"

Wilson ducked for good measure as the baseball went whizzing over his head, stopping with a soft thud in Foreman's hand. The intern gave his boss a humoring look as he stepped in the room, followed by Cameron and Chase. It took all of two seconds to review that they'd found nothing.

"Run some tests. Last time I checked, bacteria was microscopic." House held up his hand for a return throw from Foreman. He complied. "And the lighting technicians?"

"They corroborated the same story," Cameron informed him. "They found Delgado lying in a heap at house plate."

"Home plate," Foreman corrected.

"Tomato, to-mah-to," House shrugged. "I'm honored that you think they named a base after me, Cameron."

She rolled her eyes and Wilson smiled at his friend, who was obviously enjoying this. "What kind of bat was Slugger using?"

"Actually…" Foreman said, "_Slugger_."

"Oh, the irony. Metal, I take it? Check for poisoning. And what kind of baseball was he hitting?"

The interns exchanged looks.

"I don't know," Cameron said. "There weren't any there."

House furrowed his eyebrows. It didn't match up. "He was _practice hitting_. There has to be baseballs _somewhere _on the field."

Foreman shook his head. "Field was clean."

Suddenly thinking of something, House pulled himself to his feet, limping hastily out of the room. The others followed him halfway to the door.

"House—where are you going?" Wilson called.

"Back to the field. If they shut it down right after Slugger was taken to the hospital, they wouldn't have had time to swipe the field clear."

"Maybe someone did it while he was still hitting," Foreman said, like the answer was obvious.

"Oh, of course." House smacked himself dramatically on the forehead, then turned back around, leaning forward to emphasize his point. "Unless he was hitting _solo_, which all accounts claim that he was."

He didn't bother to explain any further. Wilson sighed.

"House will be happy," he said, watching as his friend disappeared around the corner. "Finally—someone lied."


	9. Chapter 9

_Definitely slashy. Rated T+ — possibly M if you've got a really good imagination. Don't like it, don't read it. Everyone else, enjoy. And I'd like to thank Caerulea for giving me a little moniker for Wilson in this chapter…_

--------------------

House had scoped out the stadium a few times, doing laps around the circumference and feeling like iconic Cal Ripkin, Jr. shaking everyone's hands at the end of his career.

He hated to admit it, but like the ducklings, he'd found nothing.

Which, in its own way, was something.

The field, he noted, was pristine. It was just as neatly mowed as ever—the grass wasn't disturbed by excess footprints of cleat marks, and no divots in the ground indicated that a baseball had ever upturned the soil after a particularly hard line-drive.

Even more interestingly, the baseball diamond was nearly untouched—except for three tracks of footprints. House could vaguely pick out two sets of Dockers soles and a heel.

"Contaminated evidence," House muttered. "Thanks, ducklings."

The rest of the field showed no evidence of cleats whatsoever. A rough patch of infield sand was mussed around home plate—there was no denying that Delgado hadn't collapsed there earlier. Judging by the spare marks left in the ground, though, he hadn't been wearing his sports shoes.

Whatever Delgado had come to the practice field to do, House thought, he most definitely was not practicing.

-------------------

A bit more winded than he was willing to fess up to, House took a seat in the first row of stadium seats. His cane echoed resoundingly against the cool metal as he tapped it, thinking. He tallied the list in his head:

_Balleta and the athletic trainer lied about Delgado's heart problem._

_Delgado lied about what he was doing in the stadium._

_Who else lied about what else? And what lies could be anticipated?_

House mused for a few moments, then suddenly thought of the chess game again. He still had a fair assortment of questions he wanted to pose to Wilson. If that wasn't motivation enough to finish the case, he didn't know what was. But there would be few breaks for stories unless they figured out what was slowly wasting Delgado away.

------------------------------

Back in the hospital, House passed up the cafeteria, oncology office, and went straight to the maternity ward. He stood just outside, watching Wilson talk with Julie, who was looking better—still drowsy, but better—and cradle his daughter.

House wondered how much a child would change his friend. He'd seen some people swop personalities almost immediately, or become carbon-copies of their own parents. Wilson was either going to be the "cool dad" who let the kid do whatever she wanted on a whim, or he was going to be vastly overprotective, given his personal history with relationships.

Or maybe he'd just be Wilson.

By chance, the oncologist looked up, and House nodded his head for him to meet him outside in the hallway. He held his daughter for a moment longer, then carefully returned her to Julie's arms.

"Slugger wasn't at the field for batting practice," House informed him as the oncologist stepped outside the room. He leaned in to Wilson for a second, taking a sniff and crinkling his nose. "You smell like baby powder."

"Wait until I start changing diapers. You'll be praising the Gods of Baby Powder then." He waited for a moment, then asked, "Do you want to hold her?"

"Me? No, that's all right. I'm allergic."

"To baby powder?"

"No. To babies."

Wilson rolled his eyes, but House restrained himself from sharing the smile; he wanted to keep the conversation remotely serious. They needed a diagnosis, or at least a possible solution, preferably soon. His computer would shut down the chess game if they waited much longer.

"When you and Chase talked to him, did he say anything about past sicknesses? Where he might've picked this one up?"

Wilson put his hands on his hips, sighing. "If it is viral, he didn't pick it up in Puerto Rico. Everyone he knew there was fine."

"Convenient story."

"House, just because someone tells you something you don't like doesn't mean they're lying."

"No," House said self-importantly. "It just means they're inconsiderate of my feelings."  
"Wait, you have those, too?" Wilson smiled, spreading his hands, feeling like his friend

was stretching his "everyone lies" mantra just a bit. "House… I really don't think the kid's lying. He's scared. He couldn't come up with a good lie right now if he tried—especially about his family. You can tell he's devastated."

"Well, look at Hitler."

Wilson searched the ceiling for strength. "I love how you compare our sick patient to one of the worst dictators the world has ever seen."

"When Hitler came to power, he almost immediately bombed his hometown. He wanted to eradicate all history of where he came from."

"So you're saying Delgado _purposely_ isn't telling us something about his family?"

"Come on, Jimmy. _Every_ family is dysfunctional. If his wasn't, good for him—he's just in denial, then."

Wilson was reluctant to agree. "I don't know… There's a better chance that Balleta is lying, trying to cover up something about his client. That heart defect, for example."

House mulled the thought over for a bit. Wilson seemed adamant, and he honestly didn't have any other better ideas at the moment. Action was better than stagnation. "All right. Let's run with it." He patted Wilson with mock support on his shoulder. "Man with Silver Tongue, you know your mission. Get a confession out of Balleta."

"And you…?"

"I'll get a confession, too."

"From Delgado?"

"No. From Chase."

Wilson kept staring after him, flabbergasted. House loved the expression—it was priceless.

--------------

The wombat had gone into hiding, House had concluded within the hour. According to Foreman, Chase had cited some stomach trouble and left for the day.

"I hope he doesn't think he's getting paid for being sick," House grumbled. "Otherwise, all our patients would be clamoring for the same checks." He looked around the almost empty whiteboard room. "Where's Cameron?"

"Wilson asked her to talk with Balleta again."

"Wait." House tapped his cane on a nearby chair so that Foreman would look up at him. "I told _Wilson_ to talk with Balleta."

"And he apparently told _Cameron_."

A muffled ring cut into the conversation, and House retrieved the pager from his pocket. He skimmed the screen:

_Consult! –Wilson_

"Ooh. Two exclamations." The older man pocketing the pager in his jacket again. "These patients must really be dying quickly."

------------------

House limped into Wilson's office, surveying the room. With the blinds drawn, it was darker than usual, but in all other aspects entirely ordinary. He anticipated that Wilson had some sort of scan he was looking at under a light and wanted House's opinion, or had derived a clever excuse why he had an apparent phobia of agents and couldn't conduct the interview himself.

Behind the desk, his friend was fussing over something in his pencil and pen drawer.

"What are you doing?"

"Took you long enough to get here. It almost melted."

House cocked an eyebrow. "Ah-huh." Completely puzzled, he raised his head to try and peer over the piles of books strewn across Wilson's desk to see whatever he was retrieving. Wilson glanced up and quickly nodded to the chair in front of House.

"Sit down."

"Jimmy, what—?"

"_Sit down_."

A shiver flashed along House's spine, but he refused to crack his indifferent expression. As he rested against the plush seat across from Wilson's desk, the oncologist circled to the front, a package crinkling in his hands.

House again considered asking what was going on, but Wilson's no-nonsense face convinced him better of it. The younger man stopped, pouring his gaze into House's eyes, and then smoothly straddled his good thigh.

Surprise encouraged House to catch his breath. It brought the remnants of a question to his lips again.

A small, entertained smile swept across Wilson's face. He returned his attention to the package he had in his hands, then slowly unwrapped it with aching care.

"The cafeteria was selling these." He stole a glance at House's stunned face. "Orange cream Popsicles."

"And…" House swallowed. "You were planning on doing what with them?"

"I," said Wilson conversationally, "was planning on eating them. And then I figured I'd share them with you."

"How thoughtful."

Wilson broke off one of the double-Popsicle, keeping the remainder in the half-crumbled packaging and setting it onto his desk. Despite himself, House squirmed as Wilson placed the Popsicle at his lips.

"Do you like orange cream?"

"I've actually always been a _Jack & Jill _kind of guy."

"That's the brand."

"Well, in that case." House opened his mouth slightly, managing, "Then I do like…" before Wilson slipped the Popsicle between his lips.

The smooth, sweet taste flooded his mouth immediately. It had been melting. Good thing he'd come relatively on time, otherwise it would've been a puddle. The coolness saturated his tongue, filling it with rich, wet cream. He gazed up at Wilson, whose eyes were already deeply copper and fluttering halfway closed.

House had always enjoyed rousing emotion from his typically levelheaded friend. He knew intuitively what crude line could be dropped to draw a raised eyebrow; he'd learned how far to push him away just to see if he'd still come back. But making him amused or angry or shocked or frustrated just wasn't enough anymore. He wanted to make him happy.

A small groan worked its way from the back of House's throat; one which Wilson quietly answered as his hips rocked impulsively against House's thigh. Once. Regretfully, he foggily reminded himself he didn't have a change of pants. He bit his lip instead and watched as he moved the Popsicle in and out of House's mouth. After a moment, House pulled his head back, prompting Wilson to stop. Then he slowly encircled the tip of the Popsicle with his tongue a few times before sucking on it again.

Wilson trembled, his head falling forward, hair dangling into his eyes. He pressed the palm of his hand against the front of House's jeans, causing the older man to jump and nearly break their secrecy with a call of Wilson's name.

The Popsicle lasted only a few minutes before a mere stick remained. House had tried to make the most of it, but the temperature was not cooperating. He rested his hands on Wilson's waist, hooking his fingers in the loops of his khakis, encouraging the oncologist to keep close for a moment longer. Wilson tossed the used stick into the trashcan beside his desk and leaned in to kiss House's mouth.

He ran an analytic, taste-testing tongue along his lips, then slid it inside House's parted mouth to coincide with his friend's. Orange cream, everywhere. House's mouth felt like a frosty landscape cascading with flavor.

Then he was off of House just as quickly as he'd drawn near, swiping his hair back in some respectable order, clearing his throat, brushing the creases out of his pants.

House blinked a few times, arranging what had just happened in coherence with reality. His voice was still inebriated and gravelly, not bothering to hide appreciation. "You've been planning that all day, haven't you?"

"Just because I'm not as impulsive as you doesn't mean I don't have my share of good ideas," Wilson said evenly. He tried to keep a serious look, but a grin ruined it, as did the flush of color in his face.

The oncologist quickly rescued the other half of the Popsicle, wrapping it back up in the paper. "We're going to have to find a freezer for this somewhere."

"I have a mini fridge in my office." House tried to look concerned. "Of course, it may not make it in time. We should probably use it now, just to be safe."

Wilson tugged House out of his reclined position in the chair. "You have a case to go work on. And besides, this one's mine." He looked at him purposefully as he handed over the ice cream. "For later."


	10. Chapter 10

Wilson slept in the maternity ward, albeit unintentionally. House found him slouched awkwardly on a chair next to Julie's bedside. She too, was breathing the soft rhythm of slumber. In a little crib, weaved through with monitors and blankets and identification notes, was their daughter. She was the only one still awake.

It wasn't quite six in the evening yet, but without windows time was objective. It might as well have been straining late passed dusk.

House quietly hobbled in, not wanting to disturb either from their rest. He regarded Wilson with eyes that expressed more than what he was ready to say. Carefully, silently, he looked into the crib.

Innocuous. That was the word. Open and unassuming, purely unmitigated. She gurgled and stared up at House with the blue, seamless eyes of childhood, as if trying to place how this new face fit into her suddenly bright, expanding world.

"Hey." House was expressionless, straightforward in that way that indicated he was absorbed in heavy thought. "I just wanted to let you know… You probably aren't going to like me."

The baby flailed her astonishingly small, frail limbs around, like a sapling bending in its first wind.

"Your Dad likes me. Somehow. For some reason. I don't know why. He's a good guy. You'll love him a lot, I'm sure."

House paused, giving his words time to sink in. Having a conversation with an impressionable child was like painting, he figured. You have to layer your sentences like the acrylics, slowly and simply, giving each the proper time to dry before spreading on a new coat.

Then again, he wasn't much of a painter. But he'd read stuff like that, and it sounded good.

Maybe it was more like composing, he thought instead. You start with a time signature—4/4, 6/8, or something a bit more advanced—and then start filling in the gaps—where do the flats go; where do the sharps fall; how long or briefly are notes held; what octaves spill over with the music; what tones blend and shape the turmoil or the rapture or the elation or the pinnacle? How do you start? How do you end? And the middle—what's fulfilling enough to bridge the two extremes?

She murmured again. So much potential in such a small, small body.

"And your mom… She likes you, too. She better, after everything. She better _love_ you, for that matter." House tapped the cane on the side of his foot, dropping his eyes. "She does. They both do. You got fairly lucky with parents. Good draw in the genetic lottery; they're well-adjusted—mostly…"

House broke off, realizing he was rambling, and noticed that the baby was becoming more preoccupied with her crib than the strange man who was speaking to her. He quietly tapped at the sidewall.

"Hey. I could be playing GameBoy right now. You might as well listen while I'm still here."

The child temporarily turned her head to look for the source of emanating knocking sound. Her attention lapsed again, though, this time to Wilson, whom she could see snoring lightly on the chair.

"So you know who he is already. Good." House sighed. He was about to leave when he tapped the side of the crib one last time. "Do you know who I am?"

"Someone who doesn't know how to keep his voice down."

House glanced over, finding Julie stretching as she groggily awoke and wiped the tiredness from her eyes.

"True," House acknowledged. He turned toward the door.

"You two been catching up?" Julie asked him before he could leave.

House thought she meant Wilson, but she gestured in the baby's direction instead.

"Uh…yeah. You have a very talkative daughter. Cell phone bills are going to be through the roof."

Julie smiled fondly. Her face looked softer than it had in months. It was as if she'd had a protective, defensive shell that suddenly fell from her body, relieving her of isolating responsibility. If House had been anyone else, he might have even forgiven her for what she put Wilson through—but he was House, so that wasn't happening anytime soon.

Conversation seemed to stale in the air. He gave a nod of departure and moved for the door.

"Greg."

He bent his knees in dramatic _I'm-trying-but-I-just-can't-seem-to-leave_ fashion, slowly spinning around on his heels. "Yes?"

"I… I'm glad you're a part of this."

House stared at her. He wasn't sure for how long, but his eyes were beginning to itch from not blinking. He waited for words to surface, but somehow his throat forgot how to pull them out for use.

Julie folded the top of her starchy, hospital blanket over a few times for something to do with her hands. "I want you to know. Maybe I don't understand everything between—between you and James. Maybe I won't. Can't. I don't know. But I don't want that to affect her." She nodded again to her child. "I don't want her family split before she even knows what one is. I don't want her having to choose sides between me, or James—or you. I don't… I don't want to hurt her."

Wilson's breathing had become the undertow of the room. "Hurt is inevitable," House said quietly.

Julie smiled softly, almost ironically. "I know that. But I won't let it come from me."

-------

From the maternity ward, House returned to his office. He punched in a few numbers on his phone and waited as the ring stretched on endlessly.

Finally, the familiar Australian cadence answered.

"Hello?"

"Hey mate, just wond'rin' where've you've gone off to," House impersonated flawlessly. He could almost see Chase wracking his brain to figure out who from back home was giving him a call.

"Ehm… Who is this?"

House returned his voice to its typical gruff, sarcastic tone. "Your friendly neighborhood doctor just dropping by."

"_House_."

"I've heard you've come down with a suspiciously sudden bout of the stomach flu. It's my diagnostic opinion that running away from embarrassing situations only seems to intensify the abdominal cramps."

"What are you talking about?"

There was no use in reviewing the details, House figured. Neither the Australian nor Wilson had mentioned anything, but the way they'd been acting was enough to assure some awkward event transpired between them while doing the patient interview.

House was willing to take a bet on what it was.

"I'm not here to judge you on your proclivities," he barged on, leaning pompously back in his seat as he twirled his cane. "Personally, I don't believe for a second you like men."

Chase just gaped over the phone, as if the conversation was nowhere near what he'd expected it to be, had he even anticipated it in the first place.

"Anyone born a rich kid with all the pampering of the world yet still does drugs, tries out for the seminary, and dates self-destructive women is one of two things: idiotic or curious. Do you have a preference?"

The blond made a few nonsensical sounds but couldn't string together a coherent sentence.

"All right, then, curious it is. Now, the way I see it, you've spent the better half of your life trying to break out of your privileged, sheltered lifestyle. The only question is… Why kiss Wilson and not me?"

Chase managed to find his voice. "I don't get romantically involved with my bosses," he said dryly.

"Wise move. But avoiding your boss completely? Not so smart. Unless you've picked up whatever Slugger has, I need you back in here to work on the case."

There was a lengthy pause. "Fine. I'll—I'll be right in. But House—"

"Don't worry, I'm not going to say anything. I suggest you don't kiss and tell either."

"Why bother? You seem to know everything that happens anyway."

"Please. You're too kind."

Within a half-hour, Chase was back in the hospital. He uncomfortably returned to the whiteboard room, keeping his eyes focused on anything that wouldn't return the look.

That didn't stop House from staring, though.

Chase felt his face flaming as House slowly worked his eyes down the Australian's frame. Judging by his taut body stance, the young man was embarrassed by the whole situation. He took a step back, but House had risen from his seat and suddenly grabbed him by the arm.

"House—"

"You don't wear Dockers."

Realizing the inspection had been a bizarre dedication to his wardrobe, Chase relaxed. He followed House's gaze down to his brown shoes. "Ehm… No. I wear them out to easily. These are Giorgio Brutini."

"They sound uglier than they look, you'll be happy to know." House shook his head as the pieces fell into place. "Didn't you go to the Mets practice facility?"

"Uh, yes." Chase shook his head. "What are you talking about?"

"Were you in the infield at all?" House insistently interrogated.

"The…?"

House cut him off hastily, "The part with all the sand, where the bases are."

"No—No, Cameron and Foreman had already checked that out. I was standing on the grassy part."

House let Chase's arm go. As he limped quickly to the door, he called out over his shoulder, "What kind of shoes does our buddy Balleta wear?"

----------

"Dockers. Why is that important?"

Balleta, still dressed to a slick T, looked utterly confused, with good reason. Standing outside Delgado's room, he could still see his client was still suffering from some unknown sickness. His heart might be steady, but his legs were useless and he couldn't keep any food down.

The evening was waning and House didn't feel like hiding his crankiness. That mid-afternoon consult with Wilson seemed centuries in the past. He reminded himself that some patients were trying to sleep, which only gave him greater impetus to raise his voice. "Because _you_ neglected to tell us that _you_ were at the field the night Slugger here collapsed."

Balleta drew back. "I most certainly was not."

"And now you're lying. I can forgive the mistaken stupidity; the intentional stuff kind of grates on my nerves."

The agent hesitated just long enough to give House confirmation about his theory.

"All right," the doctor continued. "So what exactly were the both of you doing there? I already know there wasn't any batting practice going on, so you can scratch out that excuse."

Balleta went to reach for his cell phone, as if it provided some sort of moral support. House brandished his cane, changing the agent's mind.

"You're grounded from the phone until you tell me _what was going on_," House snapped.

"That's—that's none of your business. It's not even _relevant_."

"The only reason you _wouldn't _mention it is if it _was_ medically important. You're trying to cover something up."

"I have nothing to hide."

"Then what was going on? Obviously something that needed to be 'hurried up.'"

Balleta muttered a curse under his breath. "Fine. There were—contract negotiations."

"In the middle of the evening, in the middle of the practice field."

"Yes."

"Why not in your office?"

"Because… They were very specific contract negotiations."

"Like…illegal ones? Under-the-table money?"

Balleta glared at him. "_Yes_. Now would you care to tell me why the _hell_ that is medically important?"

"I need to have a Lie Barometer. Thank you for playing—I now can assume you've lied about some other really important fun stuff. Now, behind door number two: I want you to tell me the truth about his physical exams."

"I already said, he passed them all without problems."

"And according to you, you also weren't at the field that night."

"Look, _I _wasn't even the one who _did _the exam, if you haven't noticed. Talk to the kid's athletic trainer, don't grill me."

"We can't seem to get a hold of him."

"_I'll_ get a hold of him," sneered Balleta, "if it would make you _happy_."

"That's all I'm asking. A copy of every test the guy ever did on Slugger. If he doesn't want to hand over the tests, tell him Delgado's dying. It will be the first honest thing you've said in a while."


	11. Chapter 11

Wilson slept until about two o'clock in the morning, then he woke up again.

Actually, he would have slept soundly for another few hours had House not been continually poking him with his cane.

"My office. Now."

Eyes bleary and limbs aching from their cramped position on the chair, Wilson quietly checked Julie and his daughter, then followed House out of the maternity ward.

The hallways were far from clandestine at night. The lights still radiated with their artificial dominance, nurses still bustled around from room to room, patients were still whisked about on stretchers with IV bags hanging from them like additional limbs.

Wilson's body, on the other hand, was telling him that it was the middle of the night, and the back of his eyelids were looking extremely tempting at the moment.

For a fleeting second, House linked their fingers together as he took Wilson's hand, turning the corner of the hallway. Wilson's heavily circled eyes met his friends, and crinkled with a slight smile despite his fatigue.

"You never told me what you thought about the Popsicles," Wilson said quietly. He unhooked their hands and moved his eyes around the halls to avoid greater suspicion.

House pulled open his office door smugly, ushering Wilson in. "Save those questions for the chess game."

The glow of the computer screen drenched the room in an straining, white hue. Wilson blinked as his vision went fuzzy briefly, reviewing where each of their chess pieces currently were positioned.

"You woke me up to play a game?" Wilson murmured. He rotated his shoulders, stretching his back. "This couldn't wait until tomorrow?"

"My computer was about to freeze up. Don't blame me." House uncovered a bottle of whiskey from his cabinet drawer, pouring Wilson a mitigating glass.

"Don't you have a patient or something you should be worried about?"

"His agent's running an errand for me. The kid's on his watch now. In the meantime… You keep playing as bad as you are, and I just might beat the great chess champion."

"And it's really fair waiting until I'm too drowsy to make any good moves," Wilson yawned.

"I know. Brilliant strategy."

It took all of five turns for Wilson's premonition to come to pass. He sighed, watching as House captured his horse with a self-content click of the mouse.

Wilson looked at him tentatively. "I've already told you about my family and college and that first internship. You know the rest."

"I don't know half of anything," House admitted. Wilson replayed the words in his head; it wasn't often House revealed he was lacking in information.

"All right." Wilson took a sip of the whiskey, concentrating on the sharp taste as it carved its way down his throat. House was still, thinking. Or he was still, knowing and waiting for Wilson to look up.

He looked up.

"I want to know…" House said slowly. "Were you ever in love with another man?"

-------------

_Wilson_

No. You were the first. You were the exception. You were the anomaly.

You made me think I'd lost my mind. You made me think I'd found sanity.

When I kissed you for the first time, I remember feeling as if my body were no longer mine, like I was floating somewhere in the negative space of nonexistence. I felt like I was watching from an unobtainable distance, like the sensations of your mouth and your hands and cologne were stolen from someone else.

I wanted to die so I could experience life all over again.

Did you ever watch workers paste up billboards on the side of the highway? It was like that, when they're in the midst of stripping an ad down, half-revealing an ancient one behind it, and then plastering a new billboard overtop.

Every person I'd ever been, each act I'd put on, all the aspirations I once harbored, were taken down. Behind it lay something raw and immune to tainting, the instinctive, the unadulterated. And then the layer overtop…that was you. And me. Some collaboration that I pleaded would make sense soon, or at least eventually.

You kept your silence for two weeks. Remember? It was like standing in a vacuum, the air sucked away from me, my feet dangling over the same nondescript nothingness that my eyes were forced to watch, my hands were forced to touch, my mind was forced to relive. I was tied up in the tightness, succumbing to the insurmountable. I heard and saw you everywhere, and yet I'd never felt so alienated from you.

It was a cruel test. I'm not letting you off the hook on this one. If I retreated, it was only because I felt pursuing you would be a plummet off the ledge of my disillusioned expectations.

Do I like women, you mean? Of course. They're beautiful, perplexing, emotional, intriguing. They're so different. But you… You match. I don't know. Putting it into words trivializes it; it makes it seem contrived and senseless.

It's not. It's just beyond expression.

Once I came close to telling you. It was my last year of the four-year fellowship, but Cuddy had already hired me into the oncology department and given me my own office. Still, you'd call me down when my cancer patients permitted, asking for consults regularly. I was in the middle of my second marriage, which was already eroding, and I was seeing some woman I'd met elsewhere in the hospital. She was a first-year intern in the genetic research department, as well as my second affair in three years.

The thing is, I cared about each of these women. You've told me that's why I've had two, three affairs and can't stop, despite knowing the consequences. These people aren't nameless faces I steal time and sex with. I feel a connection to them, one beyond physicality. You call me pathetic, but that's only because being exposed emotionally embarrasses you.

I realize now. I was compensating for your absence with another body to lose myself in, another person who justified my worth, who affirmed that I could positively impact someone.

That someone could need me. That I could be the stable one, even in my instability.

And then you were sick and no one could figure out why. I poured over your symptoms and the answer evaded me, too. Only you could make the diagnosis. Fitting, in so many ways.

You called me one night before the first surgical attempt to fix your infarction. You and Stacy had written on both of your legs—_not this leg; not this leg either_—for the morning appointment. She'd gone home about an hour ago to shower and get some sleep, at your encouragement.

You were so drained. Pain seeped from every crevice of you. If I could've laid myself out like a tapestry and soaked it all from you, I would have in an instant. Vicariously, I ached the same.

You said you needed to talk to me, so you upped your morphine in order to have a normal conversation through the diluted pain. I don't know if the chemical haze was better, or if you meant everything you said while the morphine coursed through your veins—if it made you philosophically delusional or if it merely opened up another corridor to your unspoken thoughts.

You told me loved Stacy, and how—for the first time—you were willing to trust someone, to trust her.

I hated seeing you lying there, so immobile, resigned, unlike yourself. I gripped your hand.

"You can trust me, too, House. Know that."

A small smile floated across your face, like a banner lifted in air just before the first clash of battle.

"How can I trust a man with faith in the faithless?" You smiled vaguely, squeezing my hand. "And how can I not?"

I almost told you then. But I couldn't risk the confession shriveling in the unanswered air. If I refused to admit anything, though, then I could at least hold on to its potential, which had yet to breached.

I was careful and reserved for the first time in any relationship.

_End_

--------

Wilson reached for the whiskey again.


	12. Chapter 12

"You do understand it's your turn for a story, don't you?"

House whisked the bottle away from Wilson's hands. "My turn to draw the line. Alcohol makes your stories way too cuddly."

"Tiredness can also do that," Wilson acknowledged. He sighed, observing House as the older man drained a long sip. "But it is your turn."

"You haven't captured any of my pieces yet."

"I've told _three stories_," Wilson persisted. "You've only told one."

"That's your fault for making crappy moves. You want to hear a story? Start playing chess."

Wilson's jaw set; his eyebrows tautly straightened in his resoluteness. Without another word, he firmly moved his remaining rook.

House hid a self-contented smile. Good. It was so easy to know which strings to pull for Wilson.

They exchanged a few moves in contemplated silence. Wilson was taking a longer time with each shift of his pieces. After careful analysis of the board, he asked distantly,

"Is Delgado's nervous system erratic?"

"Entirely normal." House poured out more of the golden contents from the half-empty whiskey bottle, bringing the glass to his lips.

Wilson squinted his eyes, then stealthily moved his queen. House raised his eyebrows over the glass.

"So how are the heart meds working?"

"Well, they've calmed down the heart."

"I never would have guessed. What about everything else?"

"Totally unaffected. Paralysis. Vomiting. Puffy eyes. They're all still there." House sighed and clicked one of his pawns in front of his king. "If the heart's getting better, the symptoms should've started fading. Maybe it _is_ somatoform."

Defensive, Wilson thought, noting House's chess decision. "We're dropping the Hitler comparison about lying about his past?"

"Hitler once got so stressed that he inexplicably went blind for a week. Somatoform disorder."

"Well, that's convenient. Slide right on over to the next excuse."

House rolled his eyes at Wilson's pedantry and slid his rook a few spaces.

The oncologist grinned, "Now who's using subliminal messaging?" and captured bishop House's rook had been guarding.

"You're more clever the later the night gets," House said liltingly. He tried to read Wilson's deadpan face, rummaging through his mind for an answer to whatever prompt the younger man posed to him.

Wilson waited for him to finish with the whiskey. He wanted eye contact, not to be drowned out by alcohol.

"What did you think when I kissed you?"

"Is this before or after the Popsicle?"

Wilson was almost regretting the entire mid-afternoon incident if House was going to keep bringing it up with that smirk on his face. "I mean the _first_ time. The first time I kissed you, at the piano."

_House_

Shit. This is… This is happening. This is finally happening. I—

_Break _

--------

"Here! If you're so _certain_ that we've all lied, _here_—take this!"

Both men looked up, surprised, to see Balleta in his atrocious suit bumbling through the door. He waved a thick folder and glinting cardiac scan in House's face.

"What took you? Some more money pilfering?"

"_That_, Doctor, is Javier Delgado's heart scan. Clean. Normal. Whatever the hell caused him to swell up like a balloon, it was something _you_ did to him when _you_ gave him meds."

"I don't give people meds on a whim," House retorted, glaring at him. Wilson almost went to protest.

"So then why would his heart suddenly expand? These scans were taken a month ago—he's been healthy up until two days ago. What the hell happened?"

"Well, we're going to have to review these medical records, and we can't really do that if you're hovering over our shoulders and dropping profanity everywhere, now can we?"

Balleta drained a stare into House's face. He glanced off momentarily to the side.

"I'm glad to see," the agent began sarcastically, "that computer chess is helping you diagnosis my client."

House sighed, contented. "Finally, Dr. Wilson. Someone who understands the intricacies of medicene."

That was enough to kick him out, even if he did leave in a huff. As the door swept shut, House indiscriminately paged through the new history they had of Delgado.

"House," Wilson broke in almost tentatively. "Hey, House?"

"What?"

"Aren't you going to finish?"

"The diagnosis? The whiskey?"

"_No_. Your story."

The older man muttered nonsensically to himself, tossing the history aside and focusing on the heart scan

again. "Bit busy right now. Leave a message at the beep. _Beep_."

"That's not fair. Three lousy sentences aren't a story. You were interrupted—"

"And now I'm returning the favor." When he realized Wilson wasn't quitting his stare, he sighed and nodded to his mini fridge in the corner of the room, just beyond his desk. "Go get that Popsicle."

Wilson raised his eyebrows.

"Well, _go_," House insisted, with a shooing gesture.

Wilson did, his stomach flip-flopping as he handed House the other half of the creamsicle. He waited expectantly in his chair, watching as House ripped open the package and drew out the ice cream. He shifted.

"House…"

The older man tossed the packaging to the floor with no ceremony whatsoever, then took a self-absorbed bite out of the treat. He never once looked at Wilson. Instead, he chomped away at the orange cream, still staring in unbreakable concentration at the scan.

"Uh… House?"

"I'm trying to _think_."

"But—but that was _mine_."

"Oh, I'm sorry. You paid—what?—a buck twenty for this?"

"One seventy-five."

"Cafeteria's a rip-off." House finally looked up, eyes wide, like he couldn't believe Wilson had actually anticipated something might happen. "_What_? I'll pay you back, if that'll make you happy."

Wilson frowned, leaning back in his chair with a nearly moping air about him. "Nice, House. Really nice."

"I need brain food."

"We're not even at home and you still eat my food."

"Hey." House held up what was left of the ice cream. "You didn't have this one marked."

"I _told_ you."

House watched him for a second, then took the final bite, not bothering to swallow before speaking again. "Oops. All gone." He dropped the remaining stick without care to the floor, returning his attention to the scan.

Wilson rubbed at his temples. "You are—"

"Amazing? Irritable? Annoying? Come on, Jimmy, throw out those adjectives."

"Well, you're certainly not _hungry_."

House smiled, but within seconds his smug façade was fading. A revelatory glimmer caught in his eyes.

"What? What did I say?"

House poked a finger at the scan. "This. This is it. Our grand-slam winner."

Wilson confusedly rose to his feet as House got up in haste, moving toward the door. The oncologist shook his head. "It's a scan that says his heart was normal."

"And why _isn't_ it normal now?" House didn't bother to hold the door open for Wilson, too busy making his way as quickly as he could down the corridor. "The heart problem isn't a condition—it's a symptom."

--------------

By the time he'd reassembled his staff, it was a dreary two-thirty in the morning. Cameron hadn't even bothered brushing her hair, and Foreman was massaging his brows like he was wondering why he didn't just get a normal job, with a normal boss, with normal hours.

Chase didn't have time to be tired. House was firing a barrage of questions at him.

"You _interviewed _him."

"So did Wilson."

"But I'm asking _you_. Didn't he say anything interesting?"

"He was self-pitying. You would've hated him."

"You seem cut from the same mold this morning." House leaned on the table, steadfast. "Do you remember _anything_ that might fit?"

"Fit _what_? House, _you_ don't even have a guess on this one. Kid suddenly becomes paralyzed; it might as well be all up in his head. He's screwed up enough with everyone he knows dying, rambling on about baseball and parties and—"

"Parties?"

Chase broke off. "Yeah. Why is that important?"

"Did they by chance have _food_ at these parties?"

"Judging by his body size, I wouldn't say they'd had much food at all."

"He did bring up cooking," Wilson managed to recall.

"All right. So let's say there was a party. Someone's _quincenera_, or a 'Good Luck, Slugger' send-off bash. So what did they eat?"

"They were dirt poor," Chase insisted, not seeing a connection. "Probably not lobster."

"Exactly." House tapped his cane on the floor with each train of thought. "Bad food, bad cooking conditions—bad stuff gets into the meat."

"You think it's food poisoning?" Cameron asked.

"No. I think it's a pesky creepy crawler."

"A worm?"

Wilson's thinking stance relaxed as it dawned upon him. "Trichinosis."

"Slugger eats undercooked pork of some kind, some larvae decides to camp out in it, there you go. Explains the nausea, the tiredness, the fever…"

"What about the paralysis? And the heart?" Foreman prompted.

"In severe cases," Wilson explained, "there is some trouble with muscle coordination. And the heart can also be infected."

"Which would lead to it looking one size too big on a heart scan once, and perfectly fine a month ago. Trichinosis typically appears within two to eight weeks of first eating the infested meat," House finished. He looked over the interns. "Get him started on myocarditis for the heart muscle inflammation and some prednisone. He should be fine."

The three were nearly out the door when House stopped them.

"The funny thing, is though… Trichinosis is usually found immediately. With a blood sample. Now, who's job was that?"

Chase glanced from Foreman to Cameron, as if that could make him look less guilty.

"Actually, that was me," Wilson interrupted.

House raised his eyebrows, too busy being surprised to notice Chase's shocked reaction.

"You?"

"Yeah. I—I think I might've confused some samples. It was late, and…"

"A four-year fellowship and I didn't teach you anything?" House tried to sound disgusted, but he figured at least Wilson's botched lab test gave him the opportunity to play deducting hero again. He waved off the ducklings, still staring doubtfully, invasively at Wilson.

Chase gave a vague nod of appreciation, and disappeared with both Foreman and Cameron.

"So." Wilson stuck his hands in his pockets, shifting from foot to foot as a smile surfaced on his face. "About that story you never finished…"

"So," House retorted. "About that lab you didn't get right…"

He _was _amazing. Irritable. Annoying. Brilliant. Wilson sighed, and headed back to the maternity ward. He didn't see House smiling, but he figured it was a safe bet that he was.


	13. Chapter 13

Slashy stuff, rated M this chapter--but still retaining literary value, at least that's my objective.

One sidenote also: When House or Wilson were telling their stories, I'd always start their anecdotes with their name in italics, then closed it with an italicized _End_. Since House's story comes in pieces this time, the later parts of it lack title/end and are just written in italics. Makes the reading easier, less disrupted.

Thanks for reviewing, and let me know how it works...

-----------------------------

The tingling felt like tiny starbursts in his feet, at first. Model-sized Big Bangs frazzled in his kneecaps, then streaked up through his thighs and fell like violet, interplanetary waves down to his athletic calves, diffusing.

By a day later, feeling had returned to Delgado's legs, and he was walking, running even, by that night. The hospital cleared him.

House made sure to miss the kid's scheduled release.

In a particularly annoyed mood, House had skipped clinic duty, too, and returned to the apartment earlier. Medical journal sprawled over his chest, he'd fallen asleep on the couch soon after he'd lied down on it.

-------------------

Wilson made it back home around eleven. He hung his scarf and jacket, each laced with the first snow of the season, on the nearest chair, listening for piano music. When he didn't hear any, he checked the couch.

"Hey, House. Snuck out, huh?"

House didn't answer.

"Julie and the baby went home today," Wilson continued. He moved the chair and stepped into the kitchen, flicking on a light and raiding the fridge. Nope. Nothing. He'd have to go out and pick up some food tomorrow, sometime. "They're both doing fine. We're invited for dinner on Sunday. I said I'd cook something. What do you think? Those peppers you like to hate so much and eat anyway? House? House, are you listening?"

No wry comments, no sarcastic jabs—a clear indication that he was sleeping. Wilson watched him for a minute. The medical journal was slipping to the floor as his chest rose and fell evenly.

Quietly, Wilson retrieved the magazine and set it on the coffee table. House never looked more introspective than he did while sleeping. Unconsciousness melted years from his face, too, the grimace lines just as attributable to smiles.

Wilson lightly touched House's hair, and then moved to the bathroom.

---------

The shower was like liquid relief on his skin. Wilson had always been pale, even when growing up in the middle of the country—he was almost genetically predestined to be a doctor with that lightness. Under a scorching stream of water, though, his tone flushed a healthy, earthy shade, raw with the heat.

He inhaled the muggy steam and stretched his neck, letting the water patter from his Adam's apple down to the center of his chest. A murmuring sigh slipped from his lips.

His eyes were closed, so he only heard the shower door open. Footsteps—one sure, one lagging—and a presence of height he could somehow sense without need for vision stepped inside.

A body pressed against his back, and instinctively his eyes fluttered open. Wilson turned his head slightly over his shoulder, just to catch the corner of the man behind him.

"House…"

"Don't talk."

Wilson made himself forget words as House strained close. Almost disappointedly, he realized House wasn't reaching for him, but for the showerhead.

One. Two. Three clicks. The stream shuddered, broke off into little, brittle pieces, then promptly began firing spurts of water at the two of them.

The hardest shower setting. That frenetic, throbbing one.

Wilson trembled as the massaging water pounded against his shoulders, then turned around in House's embrace so that they were facing one another. He moved to speak, but the older man put a restricting finger to his lips. He stepped forward and slid his knee between Wilson's legs, pressing him back against the wall. It was as if, by leaning in close enough, House felt he could envelope himself in the core of what, who Wilson was.

"Tell me…" House's words felt ethereally breathy in his ear. "What did you want twenty years ago?"

---------

_House_

Because I've wondered, and it's so stupid of me to in the first place. But I wonder how you would have felt under my hands back then, with a runner's sinewy limbs and potential's expectant, callow eyes. Gazing up at me, clinging to sheets, sobbing my name.

I've thought of all those times you stayed late to talk about my lectures, or to discuss the theoretical jargon conversation inevitably lapses into when left at its own, peripatetic pace.

"What's life?" you asked me once. I'd stayed late to grade some essays, all of which were formulaic and cripplingly boring. You had a test to make up, but hadn't taken it yet. We had a tendency to get distracted.

"Life?" I repeated. I made another red x over a student's repetitive paragraph and answered, "Breathing. A heart rate. Self-awareness."

"No. I mean, what's _living_?"

"All that stuff put into action."

"So… You feel you have to accomplish something to be living?"

I looked up. You had your sharp elbows on the desk, leaning forward—a curious contrast to my relaxed, feet-on-the-desk recline.

"I feel you have to have an impulse to make the attempt."

"And if you fail…?"

"You've led a pathetic life." I waved my hand, dismissively, and tossed the hopeless essay back on a pile of ignored others. "Doesn't mean you haven't led one. Or at least stumbled through one."

"So, in your opinion, the purpose of life is making progress?"

"I never said that. I said 'accomplishments.' Now, what's progress to one person may be regression to another. The heads at the Manhattan Project thought the atomic bomb was progress. It was, to them. The rest of mankind, however, may feel differently."

"You think that fulfilled their purpose in life?"

"I'm not here to deem what makes a life good or bad. I'm just saying what a life _lived_ is."

You glanced at your untouched test, almost considering starting it. You wrote your name at the top; then you changed your mind.

"And beyond this life lived? What do you think happens?"

I sighed, more at the myriad of essays than at you. "A brilliant chemical fireworks display in your mind."

"And then?"

"And then the organs slowly shut down, like flicking off the lights in the apartment every evening. Come on, you should know this, Boy Wonder."

"I know the medical explanation. But beyond that."

"Beyond this existence, you mean."

"Yes. Do you believe in an afterlife? Do you believe in God?"

"I believe… That what we choose to believe is of no consequence to what actually exists."

You mulled this over, your eyes darting across my face, as if looking for an entrance to my mind. "But doesn't belief affect what happens to us when we come to that point? I mean, if you pray to a tree trunk your whole life, and then when you die, you find out that God isn't made of wood, isn't that going to impact the final state of your soul?"

"You believe in souls?"

"Yes."

"Do you confess your sins to tree trunks?"

"No. Not quite."

"Ah, then. Continue."

"Well, I was just saying… If you pray to the wrong God your whole life, does that exclude you from His blessings when you die?"

"If there is a God, I think He would appreciate our praises in whatever way we choose to direct them."

"Praying to a tree trunk is just as good as going to a synagogue, or going to church?"

"Or going to a mosque, or staying in your home, or having the occasional talk with God when the thought so strikes you. Look. Most religions reiterate that God is all-knowing and that we shouldn't flatter ourselves with thinking we comprehend a snippet about anything. How can the measly human race be expected to pick out the right God from a religious lineup when we don't even have the capability to understand His work?"

"That's undermining, though."

"To humans, yes. But God loves feeling important."

You handed in your test at one o'clock in the morning. I'd never seen you tired, not once. You were unrelenting, annoyingly positive, set in your ways to make something of everything.

"Did you pass?" I asked redundantly.

You smiled, as if I'd just complimented you on your wardrobe. You wore ugly ties back then, too, you do know that, don't you? I have a theory that men are genetically predisposed to being lousy clothing coordinators.

Or maybe you're colorblind and never realized it. And style-blind, for that matter.

"Grade it. Let's see."

"What? Not confident?"

"Yes, I am."

"Then say so."

"That's cocky, not confident."

"I'll give you a guess as to which works better in the medical field."

"For making a right diagnosis, maybe. Not for being nice."

"They only pay you for one of those things. You can guess that, too, while you're at it." I quirked an eyebrow. "What, do you think people are actually going to _thank_ you when you tell them they're dying?"

You sighed as you put your hands on your hips. You even stood the same back then, slack in the shoulders but resolved in the arms, steadiness centralized in your waist and rooted to the ground through your lanky legs.

"How about you be cocky, and I'll be confident, and we'll balance each other out?" you suggested.

"Sounds good."

I graded your paper. You only got a few points docked, but I wringed you out on those pesky little details, blowing them out of proportion so you'd remember never to make those mistakes again. Those are the errors that separate success from mediocrity.

I told you so and you nodded, soaking in the chastisement without one complaint. In ways, it annoyed me. I was so used to easily irking people, pulling emotion out of them on a whim. You were too willing to improve to selfishly defend yourself.

I kept bringing up mistakes that even I thought could be overlooked, waiting to see if you called me on pretentiousness. Nothing. You just nodded.

"Wilson. Aren't you going to stop me?"

You looked surprised. "Stop you? From what? From correcting me?"

"Yes." I shook my head. "Don't you think I'm being a bit extreme?"

"You're always extreme. Besides, you point out my mistakes, and I'll point out yours. We'll be even again."

I snorted. "_My_ mistakes?"

You grinned, and even your smile was unbounded.

I wanted you there, longer. But you went back to your dorm, and the empty auditorium room continued on, heavy with ghosts of silence.

_To be continued…_

_----------_

"I…" Wilson closed his eyes, his hands roaming across House's face as if it were a new experience. "I wanted to know every part of your body. I wanted to…to fall into your mind. I wanted to give myself to you. I wanted…" He gripped the other man's shoulders, straining his body against his, and angling them so that the shower was glancing off them both evenly. "I wanted us to stand here until the water ran cold."

House trembled slightly, but maybe it was Wilson shaking. He couldn't tell the difference between their entwined limbs. "I think that's the best story I've ever heard."

"You still haven't finished yours." It was an inane reminder from Wilson, given the circumstances.

House lowered his head, trailing elusive kisses along the younger man's jawline. He felt like he was floating in Wilson's moan.

"I'm in the middle of one right now. I'll rewrite yours. They'll go together." House paused, as if leaving a long enough opportunity for time to rewrite itself, to slip back two decades.

_You had that way of staring, intense without being rude, concerned without being sappy. Copper orbs, steady, crinkling at the corners in pleasure or fear or hurt without discrimination. You'd wrinkle your brows—almost unobservable—just enough to indicate, 'I see you, I'm listening, let me in a bit more,' and it wasn't invasive, just unnerving at times, because I knew I would, eventually—I would let you in a bit more, even if it had to be under the guise of only friendship._

_I remember when you first started parting your hair to the side--an unfortunate habit, probably the ill effect of one delusional person complimenting you on your godforsaken hairdryer technique. I've since thought of hiding that dryer one morning and just seeing if you'd panic. But to do that, I'd have to be up before four-thirty to beat you, and at the moment, sleep is more important. For another time, then._

_But back to the hair. I wanted to dishevel that controlled, collected look completely. I wanted my fingers to dive and weave in and out of the locks of your russet hair. I wanted to know and earn the expression on your face--in minute detail, with every ripple, every flush, every uninhibited gasp between your lips--as I ducked my head and kissed your exposed neck, revealed for me to mark. I wanted to trail a path down to the small hollow where your collarbones joined; I wanted to trace out your bodily landscape, like it was topography to be memorized, unearthed._

He nibbled at the spot behind Wilson's ear. He closed his eyes to appreciate the gasp from his lips. Meticulously, he trailed his tongue across his earlobe, sucking, and then whispering, so low it almost faded among the humming batter of the water,

"Is this your first time?"

_And a sincere, demure look washed over your face, the shower stream erasing any past memories of the others who had been this close to him. This redefined closeness. When something so far away finally comes in close proximity, it tends to alter one's idea of "being near" someone, something, some concept. _

_This is how it would've been. Should have been. That night—your night—at three in the morning._

Breathless, Wilson let his head fall back against the shower wall. His hands roamed across House's chest, back, blindly unsure but helpless, needing contact.

"Y-yes."

"Give me your mouth."

Wilson whimpered against House's lips. He was pressing against him unimaginably hard, sucking desperately at his bottom lip, a steady hand slanting his face sidewise to deepen the kiss. He groaned as house insistently grinded against him, intensifying the aching with no relief to compensate for it. the older man ran his hands along Wilson's sides, bereft of curves, gripping the back of his thighs and pulling him into full contact.

"God, house, please—"

"And then what?"

"Kiss—touch me..."

"You're going to have be more specific." House trailed his fingers easily across Wilson's wet chest, painstakingly slow. "I don't know if you mean here…" Wilson moaned as the hands slipped lower, digressing into the triangular patch of darker hair below his abdomen, "or here."

"There."

"Like this?"

Wilson's knees threatened to collapse as house cupped him in his palm.

"Oh…God, yes—"

"I'm going to go slow, Jimmy, so you'll remember this…"

"House…"

"…this first time." House buried his head in the hollow of Wilson's neck, nipping, biting, sucking, marking. Claiming. "This first time is mine to give you."

Wilson pleaded for him to go faster. He needed the friction, needed to feel the tightness.

_You murmured incoherently. The desperate noise bounced around in the shower, swelling in a distorted, sonorous call, fuzzy around the edges. If words could be held, touched, take on movement, I swear I could see your spoken syllables cascading in your eyes. _

_Eyes with lashes almost jeweled with the water spray. Your hair--thank god, not parted anymore--askew, drenched, a deep brown verging on black. Some stray ends curled around your ears, bangs crisscrossed over your usually straight eyebrows, which were now arching to one another in a pleading peak. _

"House, please..."

_And I held you close as you floated down._


	14. Chapter 14

What House hated most about Julie's house was that she squandered all her time on the overall picture and made no effort on the details.

The walls were so colorless even the ghastly maude, uneven trim at the bottom was welcomed for color. The curtains were too puffy to be complimentary. They made the room look ten-times smaller, even though it was ten-times bigger than House's apartment. There were no bookcases since she favored her _Women's Health _and _Cosmopolitan_ magazines.

There were no pictures on the wall, since the photos of her and Wilson were irrelevant now. There wasn't any alcohol because she didn't drink. Even the grape wine was gone, ejected from her memory like a CD spit from the computer drive.

There was no carpeting because it was too hard to clean, so the wooden floors tapped every step back up to the walkers in quiet, idle conversation, like when nothing particular is ever said but a lot of rambling is spoken.

What House _really_ hated most about Julie's house was that it used to be Wilson's, too.

-------------------------------

For the Sunday dinner date with Julie and the baby, House ribbed the oncologist pretty well for making the stuffed peppers—"Betty Crocker in the making" or some disparaging comment that drew a grin only. The cooking had disrupted their chess game once more. Wilson had less pieces left, but he was in a better position for a check. And, of course, House wasn't playing with his queen, either.

On the way over to Julie's, House was reminded that the Corvette was gorgeous but not winter-proof. Wilson needlessly asked him if he'd bought snow tires for such an occasion, to which House only blasted the radio louder. It might not have had great traction, but it certainly had a sound system.

House and Wilson parked in the driveway beside Julie's black Jetta and ducked through the falling flakes. Though it was only six in the evening, dusk had settled by four-thirty, and Julie had left the porch light on. A pool of rigid gold cast on the accumulating pile of snow.

Julie opened the door at the ring. She'd grown her hair out in the past half-year, the blonde locks falling like ribbons around her shoulders and halfway down her back. She'd kept her bangs, developing a habit of shooing them to the side with a whisk of her fingers and a slight toss of her head. A v-neck sweater emphasized her slender neck and gave her some illusion of height.

She smiled, the gesture laced in makeup.

"Hey, James, Greg. Come in."

Wilson scraped his boots off on the Welcome mat; House didn't bother, trampling the winter frost across her bland wooden floor.

House reminded himself how much he hated Julie's house, glancing around as if he were piecing together a crime scene. Wilson had left his side and followed Julie to the kitchen, where the supper table was already set, and where the baby's crib had been moved.

Wilson picked up his daughter and held her carefully, a glowing grin flowing across his face.

"_Heeeey_…" he cooed. "How's Daddy's girl doing?"

House was almost surprised that he couldn't get himself to mock the baby talk. It no longer sounded strange or unfamiliar coming from Wilson. The oncologist was better at this than House had thought he'd be.

Offhandedly, the older man picked up a copy of _Cosmopolitan_ from the sofa, adjacent to the dining room, and began flipping through.

"She slept all day," Julie was saying to Wilson, as she affectionately tapped their daughter on her round nose. "I'm hoping she gets tired again by tonight, but I have a feeling…"

"Aw, I'm sure she'll be fine." Wilson dug through a shopping bag he'd brought along with a spare hand. "I got her something…" He held up a miniature baseball cap, designed especially for babies six months or older. "She's going to have to wait to wear it, but… What do you think?" Wilson gently held the hat over her delicate head. "She'll be starting in the rotation in no time."

Julie really didn't know what he meant, but smiled and nodded anyway. She took the hat to put on the side, and Wilson rubbed little circles around the baby's back with his fingertips. Her pink clothes, feathery soft to the touch, could have fit a doll if so desired.

House strolled into the room, setting Wilson's peppers with a pompous thump on the kitchen table and spreading a page of the magazine beside it. He jutted a finger at an article.

"_Ten Things a Man Thinks in Bed_. Tell me, why was this written by a woman?" House cocked an eyebrow. "And six out of ten of these are so incredibly wrong, I'm tempted to write a particularly annoyed editorial…"

Julie pulled out the disgusted look she reserved especially for House. Plucking the magazine from under his hands, she brushed passed him and returned it to the living room. "Nice to see you, too, Greg."

"My pleasure."

Wilson, still rocking his child, fired a tiredly warning look in House's direction. The older man shrugged and rolled his eyes. As if to make up for it, he leaned over the younger man's shoulders, turning his attention to his daughter.

"Looks good for a week."

"Yeah. Beautiful, isn't she?" Wilson shook his head, amazement stealing his words. She was like a piece of art, kept behind glass in a museum, that he didn't get to see nearly often enough. House smiled at his expression, the magazine forgotten as he leaned in and kissed the slant of Wilson's cheek.

He felt Julie freeze awkwardly behind them, her footsteps losing their clicking rhythm on the floorboards.

"Could you…um…not kiss in front of her?"

House turned around. "What?"

"I just… I mean…" Julie spread her arms and laughed a bit, like it was a simple, obvious request to fulfill. "I just don't want her to be confused. You know, with… You know."

Wilson looked at her, his voice catching in his throat like it always did when he felt strongly about something and didn't have the nerve to say what he wanted. "But she's a week old. She's… She's not even going to remember her _name_ until another few months."

"I know but…"

"No, I completely understand," House cut in sarcastically. He backed away from Wilson as if he feared giving him something contagious. "Don't want to confuse her."

-------------

The good thing about dinner conversation, Wilson thought, was that any uncomfortable silence could be assuaged with a mouthful of food. Then the excuse wouldn't be, "This is really awkward and I have nothing to say to you," it would be, "Gee, this potato salad is really good, and I don't even like mayonnaise."

At least, that's how it should have gone. Instead, House decided to talk. And keep talking. Indiscriminately.

"…And _that's_ why you should never piss off someone with scabies." Finishing one particularly raunchy story, House heaped another scoop of asparagus onto his plate. He hadn't really eaten much, but he found plenty of time to add more to his plate.

Wilson was shaking his head in agitated consternation at him. House ingenuously smiled back. Julie, who had learned to anticipate such outbursts, still wasn't quite immune to them. Her marble-hard gaze hadn't left her salad bowl. On more than one occasion, she'd rearranged her utensils on her napkin. Wilson was almost considering taking away her knife, fork, and any other sharp object she might be tempted to use as a projectile toward House.

He was asking for it.

"Thank you for that," Julie said tightly. "That was very…enlightening."

"It's _amazing_ what you'll learn on a daily basis," House continued, unfazed. "Just last week I was being coerced into clinic duty when—hey, Jimmy, can you pass the salt? Thanks—and there was this particularly disturbed person there. Jimmy, I'm sure you'll remember her. Kind of tall, with that huge mole on her—"

"_House_," Wilson snapped.

"What?" House held the salt off to the side, innocently. "This is a good story."

Sighing, Wilson consulted his plate of half-eaten stuffed pepper and Julie's tossed salad. The Italian dressing was gliding off the leaves and into the meat, but he didn't really care. It all went to the same place—the garbage tonight, not his stomach. He looked over at Julie and feigned an easy-going smile.

"Maybe I should warn you before he starts rambling…"

"_Me_?" House set down the seasoning and shuffled the asparagus around on his plate, not really caring where the green stalks fell. "Oh, don't be so _modest_, Jimmy. _You're_ the raconteur." He put his elbows on the table and leaned with false familiarity toward Julie, who slightly shrank back. "Did you know you're ex-husband was actually a gifted storyteller?"

"Really?" Julie raised her eyes skeptically at the older, scruffy man, then turned to Wilson. The silence compelled her to fill it. "This some…hidden talent of yours?"

Wilson's face burned. "Not really," he said tightly, and he wished he had mastered the art of lying through his teeth, or at least halting embarrassment before it leaked revealingly from his eyes. And Julie could read him so damn well. He tried a smile that caved in on itself before the foundation had even been laid. "You know House."

"Yes." Julie paused and folded her napkin again. "Yes."

"But that's the thing these days: stories," House insisted. "Telling them, inventing them, twisting them. Really, _really_ great market for stories this day and age. I mean, you look at the news, look at television in general—it's like they just burst the levees of free speech and let _everything_ count for something. And fatalistic, too—that's what's so gripping in my opinion."

Wilson was nearly squirming in his seat. The room was so large that House's words wouldn't settle down anywhere. They just kept echoing and floating, like a flock of pigeons that were circling and couldn't find the cobblestone. "House, I think that's enough…"

"I mean, Julie—did you watch that _Bird Flu Pandemic_ movie on TV the other week? _Whew_, intense! I'll tell you what, if 20 million people die from poultry, the health care industry is going to be _soaring_—no pun intended."

"All right, House." Wilson's voice was dangerously tense. "Drop it."

"It makes you think, though. Why is it that our country—that _mankind_, for that matter—is so obsessed with The End? Do we _really_ _want _it to be over that badly that we're willing to convince ourselves it's coming just around the corner?"

"I wouldn't say—" Julie tried.

"Of course you wouldn't. But see, this is my theory—tell me, it's genius, isn't it? Annihilation—and think about this—_annihilation _gives life _immediate_ _meaning_. Suddenly, it's important because you're going to lose it." He jabbed a fork into the asparagus and lifted it to his smirking mouth. "And there's nothing anyone wants more than the thing they pushed away and now can't have back."

Julie stared at him for a long time. Wilson wanted to blend into the seat cushion. He thanked whoever was up there listening that his daughter would be too young to remember this horrendous evening years later.

--------------

"So…" House was shrugging on his leather jacket to leave. Wilson had wanted to bury himself in his own suede coat and leave as soon as possible. He loved seeing his daughter, but two hours with House and Julie in the same room was torture. Time might as well have grinded to a halt and left its tire tracks across his pained face.

"So…" Julie replied in her fake, cool tone. Wilson knew the sound all too well.

"So… Who's the guy?"

"Excuse me?"

"Who's the guy?" House repeated simply. He looked offended that Julie seemed to think he wouldn't have noticed. He gestured with a nod around the room. "You don't like reading the paper, but it's obviously open. The news and sports sections are by the sink, the rest is all over the counter. And you drink orange juice, not tomato juice, yet there's a suspicious amount of V8 in the fridge. I'm guessing he's a health nut. _And_ you're wearing perfume. I think it's safe to say you don't like me enough to smell nice, and you're too used to Jimmy to try especially hard to impress him, so…" House leered self-righteously. "Who's the guy?"

"None of your business."

"Uh…" Wilson cut in awkwardly. He stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Actually, yeah. Who is he?"

Julie gave a short laugh, trying to make it sound like this whole night had been rather entertaining but the joke was slowly getting old. "No one you know."

"Try me."

"He's—he's a neighbor of a friend. Rhonda—you remember her?"

Yeah, Wilson thought dryly, the one who you stayed with when you realized I wasn't giving in.

Wilson nodded. "Ah…yes, yes, I think so."

"Yeah. Well. Her neighbor."

"Well, not anymore," House observed, as if he were making an ordinary remark about wind currents or the barometer. "From the looks of it, I'd say he's moved in."

Julie pursed her lips. "And why would that be a problem? James has moved in with _you_, hasn't he?"

"Ah, yes, but see? We have some history." Wilson wanted to smack him for his showy embrace he gave the younger man. "Does Mr. Rhonda's Neighbor know he's a rebound?" A forced, concerned look flashed across his face. "Oh—you don't _kiss _in front of the baby, do you?"

"House, _shut it_," Wilson finally snapped. He shrugged him off his shoulders harshly, glaring at him to step outside. When he didn't budge, Wilson turned back apologetically toward Julie. "It's—it's been a rough couple of days."

Julie tilted her head, haughty. "I'd say."

"Of course you would," House scoffed.

Wilson regretted not holding his daughter once more before leaving, but he felt like every limb in his body had just been frosted over by House's uncouth remarks.

The Corvette was freezing. Wilson had claimed the steering wheel before House could. He put on the defrosters and the car stiffly made its way out onto the iced road, tainted blue by the street lamps. Julie's porch lamp had long since been extinguished.

"You know," Wilson said, gripping the wheel, "you have _no right_ to complain that she doesn't like you. You _encourage_ her to hate you."

"What?" House smiled because it was the only thing he was comfortable doing. "You're saying I should be artificially nice?"

"_No_, I'm saying you shouldn't be intentionally difficult."

They sat in stiff silence for a half hour. Through the dusk, mixed with charcoal night and snow, House suddenly realized they'd missed their turn.

"Jimmy."

Wilson wouldn't look at him.

"_Jimmy_."

"_What_?"

"Where are we going?"

His foot alternated between the accelerator and the break, trying to compromise with the weather conditions. "We're going for a drive."

"Where?"

Wilson shook his head, amazed that House thought he deserved to know after that evening. "We're… We're just going for a drive."


	15. Chapter 15

_Thanks for reviewing again, everyone. And March Hare, just to let you know: Yeah, I finally got a name for the baby. She's turned out to have a bigger role as the story's progressed, so she deserves one. Enjoy…_

-----------

The car, grinding along, sounded as if it were running over layers of plastic. Snow in New Jersey never really did that well. It stayed immaculate for half a day, and then kids got to it, dogs got to it, exhaust got to it, until the expanse of white was shoveled and marred. Most of it would be dry and black by afternoon tomorrow already, pollution making it resemble a sheet of once-white sketching paper that someone had scribbled with graphite, and then tried in vain to erase.

The snow would be clogged with the filth of the city, stunned at the impurity of the earth compared to that of the crystalline atmosphere.

The road was rapidly growing narrower from sidewalk snowbanks and dimmer as the city lights retreated in the rearview mirror. House asked again where they were headed, which prompted only another ten-minute silence from Wilson. House was tempted to poke him to make sure he hadn't frozen in the middle of driving; he was so stiffly immobile.

House reached for the radio, but Wilson slapped his hand away.

"Fine." Indignant, the older man sat up taller in his seat and looked out the window. He pretended it was still light enough to enjoy the view. "So, what do you think, Jimmy? Next Sunday, Julie and the kid at our place?"

Wilson's voice was so raw it almost hurt to listen to it. "I don't think they'll be planning on it."

"What? Didn't your peppers go over well? Indigestion is a great was of scaring off guests, Jimmy."

"House, shut it."

"I mean, then again, maybe Julie was just in a shitty mood. Hey, I bet _that's_ it. Or was she always like that?"

"House—"

"And around the baby, too. You think she'd be more considerate. After all, with not wanting us together in front of her… Understandable, though. The kid is a symbol of you two together. You're blatantly defacing it by being with me."

"House, will you _shut up_, already?"

The older man quieted, tapping an irrelevant beat on the inside of the door. The thumping sound seemed to draw itself from beneath the undercurrent of scraping, crackling snow beneath the tire's grip.

"And what's interesting," House began again, "is that I don't even think Julie _would_ hate me, so long as I wasn't with you."

"Well, you're certainly not very likeable solo, either."

"That's nice to know, coming from you."

Wilson sighed, frustrated. His ungloved hands felt frozen to the wheel, like he was an extension of the iced vehicle and compelled to keep driving. "You know what I mean, House. _Around Julie_. You have to learn what's obnoxious and tolerable and what's just crude. And different people have different lines drawn for what they can handle."

House stared at him analytically. "Why are you protecting her?"

"Why am I protecting—?" Wilson balked, but his eyes stayed on the road. "House— I'm—I'm not _protecting _her."

"Then what are you doing? Because so far you haven't said one damn thing about how rude she was to us."

"She wasn't… I mean, she _was_, but at least her actions were based on—on personal convictions."

"Another crazy Republican against gay marriage?"

"_No_." Wilson's voice was becoming deceptively conversational. "I don't know _what _party she backs, and I don't even think she votes."

"But she's still obviously against it."

"I…yeah." Wilson ran a hand across his face, as if that could wipe off the stress he felt creasing his skin. "Look, she annoyed me too, but you didn't see _me_ lashing back, did you?"

"No, because you're pathetic."

"Thanks, House. Thanks a lot."

"I bet you anything she doesn't care shit about gay marriage. She just doesn't want to see you happy, and you're letting her get her way."

Wilson smacked the steering wheel with an open hand, loud enough to make even House flinch. "I was _trying_ to make dinner go smoothly. I see Mia _once a week_, and for _God's sake_, if you could just swallow your pride for one damn second—"

"You can't blame the baby this time. She's no longer optional for an excuse. Come up with a better one."

House's voice was disconcertingly calm against Wilson's outburst. The younger man raised his hand again, but then realized the wheel didn't feel anything when he'd struck it. Even his palm was only distantly tingling. Senseless. So completely senseless and ineffective.

He returned his grip, more lax now, to the wheel. He was stunned, drained, out of anger.

"House—" Wilson hung his head for a second, his voice circumspectly weighed and hardly hovering above monotone. "I don't know what the hell you want me to do."

"I want you to take back the part of you that you gave Julie. She doesn't have it anymore. Give it to your daughter, give it to me, but stop feeling like you _owe_ her something."

"I…" Wilson slowed down the car enough to risk a glance over at House. "I know I don't _owe_ her anything."

House shot him a disgusted look. "Then why are you putting up with her crap?"

"Because she put up with yours."

"I'd hardly say so."

"Because I love my daughter."

"And you think letting Julie make you miserable fits into that equation? Courtesy goes both ways."

"Nice how you're lecturing _me_ on courtesy."

"Do as I say, not as I do."

Wilson was quiet for a minute. Something corked in his chest felt like it popped, and he was glad the streetlamps made everyone's eyes look generally glossy.

"I feel like…like everyone has a piece of me," Wilson said quietly. "I don't know what's left."

"Your fault, needing neediness. I warned you." House dropped his eyes momentarily, then added less scathingly, "They only have what you give them."

"So…" A short laugh escaped through Wilson's tightened throat. "So I should try being as recalcitrant as you?"

"You know, when you get upset, your vocabulary extends…exponentially."

Wilson was amazed he remembered how to laugh, and he did, the sound mixed with tension and relief intertwined. His shoulders shook, and he kept reminding himself what it felt like to be warm, warm, warm. Julie's house had been freezing, the car was a block of ice, and the leather seats of the Corvette seemed chiseled from permafrost.

The joke felt contrived to House. Late night shadows fell in smothering blankets across his face, hiding concern. "Jimmy. Jimmy, look at me."

Wilson took a breath and coughed out the rest of his emotion. The Corvette slowly rolled to a stop, sliding an extra two feet on the wintered road.

"We're here."

------------------

"We're in the middle of nowhere."

Wilson kept walking across the snow-covered field, his footsteps weaving paths like unstrung necklaces over the white. House followed, estimating the accumulation with his cane. A good three, four inches already. He glanced up at the sky, and the flakes came spiraling down, twirling in their own preoccupation, one amid millions, not especially caring where they fell, so long as they attributed to a bigger purpose.

House watched Wilson get further ahead of him. Finally, the oncologist stopped, standing contently amid the snow-heavy night.

The older man limped over, taking a spot beside him, doubting Wilson's clarity of thought. "We _are_ in the middle of nowhere, aren't we?"

"You're standing on the pitching mound."

"I'm what?"

The flush of cold, windblown red to Wilson's cheeks returned an absent glimmer in his eyes. The snow settling in his tufted hair was melting at the ends, making his scarf the beneficiary of an icy drip. House could see the slight curls of heat radiating off the back of his neck. When he spoke, clouds of breath formed in the air and drifted out in wisps of gray-white, as if his words had taken tangible form.

Wilson pointed out in what seemed to be a random direction.

"There. That was home plate. To the left, over there—first base. Behind us is second, next to that was where I played, shortstop. Then we got this transfer kid, hell of a lot better than me, so he took that position instead. I went to outfield, mostly, sometimes third base if we were lacking someone in rotation. I had the arm to make the throw, but I didn't have the discipline to keep the ball from sailing." Wilson shrugged with a smile of sorts. "It was a rough senior year. Broke my leg sliding into base. This was my final game, here."

"In New Jersey?" House asked, skeptically.

"Yeah. We were in some East Coast tournament. We'd won our District back home, undefeated."

"Did you win here?"

"Yeah. Ian pitched one of his no-hitters. Two to nothing; we advanced to the semis. We lost somewhere in Delaware. Newcastle, I think."

House scanned the field. They could have been standing on Indian burial ground and the coating of snow would have left him none the wiser.

"Where's the fence? The dugout? Bleachers?"

"Torn down. They're building a new housing development, so they have to redesign the field. It's going to be moved somewhere in the center of a park they're planning, I've read. Julie's newspaper had an article about it on the front page of the local section."

"Ah." House kicked around the snow at his feet. The chill was magnifying the pain in his leg, but he hid the grimace beneath his casual scowl. "Thanks for the tour. Now, if you haven't noticed—it's _freezing_."

"Yeah." Wilson sighed. "Yeah. I noticed." Still, he didn't shift from his contemplative spot, gazing out across the field.

"All right." House tapped his cane a few times into the snow, making divots. "Well, _this _has been fun. Kind of pointless, but fun. Do you want to build a snowman or go back to the car?"

"I want you to tell me why you can't be somewhat normal around Julie." Wilson glanced back at him. His hands were still stuck in his pockets. The darkness of his scarf made his skin look especially pale, almost clandestinely pure. "It isn't exactly easy for me either, and if you insist on being the catalyst for more controversy, it's not helping."

"I just want you to stand up for yourself."

"Well, then, you can back off." Wilson turned back towards what was once the outfield. "I _want_ a normal relationship with Julie, at least for Mia. Don't tear it apart."

House looked away, kicking at an unruffled patch of snow. "I'm not trying to tear anything apart."

A skeptical _humph_ emerged from Wilson's throat.

"I'm not," House said defensively, caught halfway between a glare and the closest thing he could manage to an apology. He shook his head. "Sometimes you're too calm for your own good."

"I'm too _calm_? What, we should all be impulsive like you? We should be hostile like Julie gets? House, _someone_ has to be stable. Someone has to—"

"Give? You give enough, Jimmy. Take something this time."

Thoughts overruled words, so Wilson kept standing where he was for another moment or two. The snowflakes were getting bigger; a sure sign that they'd be stopping soon.

He shivered. "Let's go home."

"No snowman? You want to build an igloo at least?" House pressed, even as he turned and followed the oncologist back to the snow-laced Corvette.

"I challenge you to a snowball fight when we get home. Loser shovels the sidewalks tomorrow."

House scoffed, aghast. "You'd make a _cripple_ shovel sidewalks?"

"I have complete faith in your abilities."

"Yeah. Thanks."

------------------

The car growled as Wilson slipped the keys into the ignition. House leaned forward and turned on the radio—the end of some guitar-searing Boston song—and this time the younger man let him without complaint. He pressed a foot down on the accelerator.

The wheels spun frenetically against the snow. They kept spinning, wheezing, but not clinging.

Wilson took his foot off, then tried again.

Once more, the wheels spun like an uncontrolled wheel in Steve McQueen's cage. Traction remained evasive.

Wilson muttered under his breath. He stepped outside and examined where they'd parked. More snow had since gathered around the wheels, and they had slowed on a particularly icy patch that wasn't lending any grip to the tires. He sighed, moving around to the back of the Corvette to attempt—not very successfully—to push the car out of the bank.

The driver's door shut with an empty click as he returned to his seat.

"They just don't make graft like they used to," House observed. He grinned.

"Please tell me you're not enjoying this."

"The irony is perfect. You drive all the way out here to punish _me_, but end up punishing yourself."

"This isn't a punishment," Wilson said thinly, as if House were being overdramatic. "It's… It's an inconvenience. Do you have the number for a tow or something?"

The older man gestured out the frosted window toward the baseball field again. "And I love how the past just seems to want to hold on to you," House continued.

"A tow, House?"

"I used to. Then I cleaned out the car for inspection."

"You mean _I_ cleaned out the car for inspection."

"Whatever. You moved everything."

"I'm sorry I couldn't tell the difference between pointless junk and valuable junk. Don't you keep it in your wallet?"

"It _was _in the glove compartment. Thanks to you, everything's organized and now I can't find anything."

Wilson sighed, leaning forward to at least turn up the heat. He didn't have any garage numbers on hand, either.

"Why don't you call Julie?" House suggested. "Ask her to dial up a tow."

Wilson stared at him like he'd lost his mind. "Oh, yeah, House, that's brilliant. Why don't we antagonize her _more_ this evening?"

"Do you really want an answer?"

"No." Wilson reluctantly rummaged through his jacket for his cell phone. Nothing wanted to be easy tonight. "But I'm sure you have plenty."

Wilson dialed. There was a click as someone picked up the receiver, and Wilson instinctively stepped back outside of the car, cutting House off from eavesdropping in on the conversation, or sneaking in some boisterously obnoxious side comments.

"Hello?"

The oncologist was thrown off by the low voice. He half-wondered if he'd punched in the wrong numbers. "Uh… Is Julie Holloway there?"

"Yeah," the voice said suspiciously. "Who is this?"

"Who's _this_?"

"James." A new voice took over the phone, this one matching his ex-wife's. "What do you want?"

"Who was I just talking to?"

"That's just… What's going on, James?"

"Julie. Come on. Is that him?"

"Is that why you called?" Julie said, her voice rising in annoyance. "You wanted to check up and make sure—"

"Actually, we got stuck in a snowdrift and I need you to call a tow," Wilson interrupted, voice tight.

There was a lengthy pause. "Oh. Yeah, fine. Where are you?"

Wilson gave her the directions and street names of the nearby intersection. He paused, letting her write it down, before asking again, "Is that him?"

"_Yes_, are you happy, James? Yes, that's him."

"Does he… Does he have a name?"

"No, I just walk around calling him 'Him' all the time. Of _course_ he has a name."

"Well…?"

"I don't see why it matters to you."

"Oh, so it's perfectly fine for you to know every detail about my life, but I can know nothing of yours?"

"That's funny. I never knew you were the jealous type."

"I have nothing to be jealous about," Wilson protested. He was so frustrated, he almost laughed at the absurdity.

"Well, you certainly seemed like you did tonight. I don't understand why you have to be so miserable when you're here—"

"Julie," Wilson cut in, his tone simplistically even, "if you didn't want us to come, you shouldn't have invited us."

"I _do_ want you here. I just—I don't know…" A sigh engulfed the other end of the phone. "I just want an apology."

Wilson nearly dropped the phone. "An _apology_?"

"Yes. Our whole marriage was a _lie_, James. A _lie_. Signing some divorce papers doesn't make it okay. It's over but it's not done with. Five years…they don't come back. I just—I don't understand why you would commit to a relationship you didn't want."

"I _did_ want it."

"No, you didn't."

His lips were drawn in wire-tight lines, pallor wrapping its way around his features. "How could you possibly know what I wanted?"

"Because I see what you have now, and how happy you are. And I saw how—how despondent you were then. With me."

"Julie, don't trivialize."

"I'm not trivializing, James. I'm being honest. Be honest with me."

"I don't know what you want me to say."

"Apologize."

"Julie, if I remember correctly, _you_ were the one who was unfaithful. Not me."

"In thought, you were."

"Yes, that's is an interesting thing. Thoughts versus actions. Which one counts, again?"

"I did _nothing_ you haven't already done."

Wilson's voice had fallen, barely audible in its gravity. "I never did them to you."

"You can't tell me you wouldn't have."

"But that's really not your place to say, is it? Because you were too busy taking the initiative yourself. And now you want an apology? Julie…" Wilson rubbed at his temples. "Did you ever stop to think for _one second_ that maybe you're not the only one capable of getting hurt?"

"And did youever consider that _you_ might cause more hurt than you realize?"

"I know what I've done, and I'm sorry for that," Wilson said somberly. "But I'm not sorry for this."

"You should be."

"No. You're wrong. I'm only sorry that you _think_ I should be."

Her breathing was steady like the snowfall over the phone. "His name is Damien."

-------------------

Wilson listened to the emptiness for nearly a minute after the click. He returned the cell to his pocket, trudging back to the car. House was examining the wooden grains on his cane, but Wilson knew he had been peering out the window and reading lips. The window was fogged over from where he'd breathed in it.

"Sounded like that went over well. Do you think she's calling a tow or the cops?"

Wilson reminded himself to humor House. "Police have nothing to arrest us for. Besides, you could always plead insanity."

"Ooh. Defensive." House turned up the heat just a bit more, angling the vent toward his pulsing leg. "Well, as long as we're here waiting… Time for a story."

Sighing, Wilson raised his eyes toward the dark material of the retractable roof. "A story? House… We aren't even playing _chess_ right now."

"But I have the board right here." House tapped his head. "Now, let's recap: Last time, you captured my bishop and I told a story. But you moved your pawn to do it—the one three spaces up and two right of your king."

Wilson blinked, trying to picture it and confirm. "Uh…yeah…"

"That pawn was the only piece blocking the path to your bottle cap rook. Since it's my turn, I can use my remaining rook to capture yours."

Wilson sighed, realizing he was caught. It would be at least forty-five minutes until the tow came—and that was hoping Julie called it. He rested his head against the cool leather of the driver's seat. "All right. Go ahead."

"I want to know what you were thinking at your wedding with Julie."

Wilson closed his eyes, immediately opening his mouth to speak, but House cut him off with a hand on his sleeve.

"What you were _really_ thinking."

The younger man looked him over carefully, steadily. The snowflake wetness was hardening into ice crystals over his scarf. "I've never lied to you in these stories."

"Yes. But this time… This time might be tempting."


	16. Chapter 16

_Thanks for the reviews again—it's a huge boost for keeping the creativity flowing. _:)

_-------------_

_Wilson_

It was a small ceremony—roughly a dozen people from each family came. On the left side of the Temple sat my parents, my older brother, you, Stacy, and some odd assortment of old friends I felt obligated to invite but didn't really speak to anymore, a neighbor or two, you get the idea. It wasn't quite like your Poker lineup, where you pick people up from the bus stop to fill the "buddy role," but I'll admit, I was stretching in some cases.

How is it that we seem to work in circles around each other?

I've gotten so used to dressing in suits and ties for medical reasons that my wedding day felt like just another trip to the office. It was slightly awkward without my lab coat, though, I was essentially missing a part of myself.

I'd been working late hours.

They'd had to alter my suit slightly when I'd bought it. The sleeves were a bit too long, cuffing at my knuckles, and I needed to get a narrower pair of pants to go with the ensemble. I remember you picked out my tie for me because you didn't trust me to do a decent job of it. Plain, simple, silver. It caught the gleam of the lit candles in the Temple.

The Rabbi was a man I'd known since childhood. My parents, both religiously devout, had sent me to classes on Sunday to learn more about my Jewish history. He'd taught lessons from grades eight through twelve, so I saw a lot of him. I learned the basics: Moses could part seas but couldn't ask for directions; everlasting candles were miracles; follow the Ten Commandments and keep waiting on a Savior.

His voice was low in that subtle, reassuring way, though I was certain he was silently praying to God that this would be the last time he was called to perform a wedding ceremony for me.

Over the gentle curve of Julie's shoulders, I could see you standing among the guests. I smiled, remembering how I'd tried to pick out your tie, and you broke into uncharted laughter at the atrocity I selected. You'd promptly looped it around my collar and straightened it out, then ushered me in front of a mirror.

"Tell me, the Doctor Previously Known as Boy Wonder," you said with a smile. "Would _you_ wear that?"

I tugged at the tie, pulling my lips to the side as if I were inspecting a leaking pipe. "I don't see what's wrong with it…"

You groaned good-naturedly and forbid me from ever coming near your wardrobe.

But what was that? I thought now, standing before Julie, thoughts like frazzled streamers looping in and out of the crevices of my mind. What _was_ that? What had it always been? I suppressed my thoughts further, coming up with an explanation that could settle my nerves.

It was some youthful, sporadic whim I'd had, I'd decided. Respect and admiration had gotten tangled up amid the wrong lines. I'd been lonely at school, at college; I'd been unsteady, I'd been willing to latch on to security—in whatever form it came in. I figured it could have just as well been a leggy blonde if I'd had any luck. It just so happened to be my lanky, sarcastic professor. I stopped trying to fit excuses to the impulse that was sinking in my brain, heavy with embarrassment, and yet urging, yearning to break the surface with an instinctual buoy.

But now, I was mere months away from turning thirty. I had a good job, good income, and was responsible enough to handle two previously failed marriages. I could trade vows again without hesitation. _I love Julie. I love my wife. _And if I kept saying it, it was as if the words would curl up on my tongue and remain there, implanting themselves into my head, drowning my erratic impulse one final time.

That's what I thought, standing there, as rings slipped onto fingers. The word replayed over the Rabbi's voice: _erratic, erratic, erratic_. Erratic is something sudden, with no logic. It varies, it morphs in emotion, it waxes and wanes depending on the situation or the current state of mind.

What I felt for you wasn't erratic, I realized. That word didn't fit. What I felt made no damn sense whatsoever, but it certainly wasn't founded on a whim. It was the steadiest conviction I'd known in years.

But of course, there was no room for me anyway. I watched you standing with Stacy at your side, a trim, dark-haired essence I'd just started knowing. She was a skilled lawyer, a perfect contrast to you who would brashly challenge your sarcasm, not heed it; who would level-headedly demand that you expose what you hid beneath your dry wit.

And I twisted all my thoughts of the future into neat, labeled boxes. The two of us would each be married eventually, maybe with families—although I could never picture you having kids—and talking medicine, doing our jobs, possibly having Stacy dredge you out of legal trouble that you just couldn't seem to avoid. She'd been living with you for five years already, and by my count that was the closest thing to miracle the world had ever seen.

It was a couple months after she'd committed you, unknowing, to the second infarction surgery. You were still hobbling around with that cane, insisting it was temporary.

Near the end of the reception, you sat down beside me, a plate of cake in your hand. You fumbled with your cane and tried to look casual.

"How long's this one going to last?" you asked, then smirked so I'd know you were joking…kind of.

"Funny, House. You know…" My voice trailed as I watched you yank out a bottle of pills from your jacket pocket. You popped one, and on a second thought, you dumped out a few more and started grinding them up into powder with the silverware. Then you scooped it up in a spoon and sprinkled it over the icing before starting on your dessert again.

You had a mouthful of marble cake. "Mfhdg?"

I assumed you meant "What?", so I shrugged, still taken aback by the medication. "What are those?"

"Happy pills," you answered, swallowing.

"No, really."

"No, really." You gave me a sarcastic glare. "It's Vicodin. Want some for those inevitable marriage headaches?"

"How many?"

"How ever many I feel like."

I could almost hear the pills crunching as you licked some of the icing off your fork. "Are you sure you're not taking too—?"

"My _leg_ tells me when to stop," you said sharply. "I have it under control."

And since you always did, I had no reason to doubt you, so I didn't. I hadn't eaten my cake, which you noticed and swiped the second I let my guard down. Resting your feet on the bottom rungs of my chair, you added some Vicodin to the icing again, watching me like you eye your latest puzzle sprawled out on hospital bed.

"What?" I asked.

Your lips broke into that self-content smile, stretching across your face as you finished chewing. "Nothing… Just wondering who picked out that _brilliant_ tie. Stunning, Jimmy. Just stunning."

I turned my head slightly as I felt my face tingle, blooming into a flash of red. You'd just started using my first name in conversation a few months ago—usually as a prodding joke, not seriously; but only through jokes were you ever really honest with me. Your self-deprecation had become more habitual than ever.

I shifted in my chair, my sleeve ghosting your left knee. I looked up quickly, but you were excavating the chocolate from your cake like an anthropologist does fossils. Your brows were worked together in calculating precision. I'd never seen someone so intense over his dessert. Then again, I'd never seen anyone as intense as you were about anything, everything.

My arm stayed steady, just barely crossing the line from hovering above to resting upon. I risked another glance at your face. You still weren't looking.

I pasted "what ifs" over your features. I wondered how much detail I could see depending how close I leaned in; I wondered if you'd go back to shaving or if the scruff was a symbolic frustration you felt after the surgery. I was willing to bet Stacy would sooner or later convince you to tidy up. And I wondered how it felt against skin.

More confident, curious, I moved again. Lost in a haze, my knee brushed against your right leg.

"_Shit_, Jimmy!"

I jumped as you pulled back, a grimace wreaking havoc across your face. The breath jammed up my throat.

"House—"

You clutched your leg, hissing through your teeth as you pulled away, refusing to look at me.

"House—I'm sorry. I didn't know—"

"All _right_," you snapped defensively, turning your voice down. Your hand massaged your thigh, and through the thin material of the pants I could make out the sizable mass of muscle that was missing. Something sank to my feet, taking my stomach for the plummeting ride.

I retracted from your personal space even more, but now I realize it wasn't me you were disgusted with; it was your own handicap. In the back corner of the room, my parents were chatting with Julie, and I made a feeble attempt to excuse myself and join them.

You snatched at my arm.

"You don't get away that easily." I expected a skewed grin but didn't get one. Instead, you committed an unpeeling stare into the depths of my eyes as I sat down again. "Would you have done the surgery?"

I blinked, waiting on words that wouldn't come passed my slight confusion. "What?"

"Would you have done the _surgery_?" You poked an accusatory finger at your leg.

Of all times, you decided to choose _this_ one, the wedding, a time where I should have at least _tried _to be having a relatively good time. The months after the infarction hadn't been easy on anyone. Stacy had called me, crying, a few times. Neither of us had told you. We were supposed to be the strong ones, no matter how miserable you wanted to be.

I shook my head, fumbling. "I don't… If—If it would stop the pain, if it would save you, yes."

"Is this _your_ leg to screw up?"

I silently cursed at myself for dredging this hostility up with one capricious movement. "No, but your life matters to me."

"So it's selfish. 'Who cares if his leg's gone? Who cares if he has to deal with that? At least we have him here with us.'"

"It's amazing how you can make that sentiment sound like a bad thing."

"_Sentiment_?" you practically seethed. "Yes, I'm _so glad_ I have such caring friends. Tell me, are you going to tuck me into bed every night, too? Maybe kiss me and watch until I fall asleep?"

Your sarcasm reverberated through my chest. The words were pulsing on my tongue: _Would you let me? Would you let me_?

Glaring at me once more for good measure, you returned to poking irritably at your cake. I pieced the remnants of my voice together, tinged with astonished hurt.

"You would have rather _died_ because death is under your control, and recovery isn't?"

"Recovery _is_ under my control. But I wouldn't _have _to recover, would I, if I'd had a choice about _my life_?"

"Stacy _saved _your life."

"You let her."

"I wanted her to."

"Maybe I didn't." I couldn't count all the shades of blue in your frozen eyes. "Not that way."

That's when you told me you'd split up, that you'd both come to the wedding separately. The entire room felt like it sucked itself inside-out, like laundry convoluted on the line to dry. I just remember staring at you.

And then, like a blackout filled the time and space in between, I was in the room with Julie. We went through the honeymoon motions, both of us already knowing the other in detail. There was no suspense, no surprise. But as her gown crumbled to the floor in a pool of satin white, I kept feeling like I was unwrapping something that didn't belong to me. The ring on her finger felt scathing as she brushed her fingers along my face.

Hours later, I went through motions of sleeping, and breathing, and falling back into the conformity of marriage. I got up in the middle of the night when I realized nothing had changed.

_End_

-------

"I was not that rude at your wedding," House said almost immediately.

"My story. And I say you were."

"I thought you didn't lie in your stories."

"I didn't know you had selective memory."

House looked away from Wilson, but smiled as he took out the Vicodin and offered up another pill to his throbbing leg. He shrugged.

It had stopped snowing, the heat in the car was almost stifling, but no one was in much of a mood for turning it down or cracking open a window. The radio kept pulsing with a random assortment of songs. They'd eventually lost the classic rock station, so House had fiddled with the dial until music fought its way through the static.

Wilson groaned as the singer's voice came into clear focus. "Reason Number 452 why you need Sirius satellite radio in this car: Alanis Morisette."

"Your turn to shut up. It's the only station we're getting out here. Thanks for picking a baseball field in the middle of nowhere, by the way."

The oncologist raised his eyebrows as the singer's brittle voice shattered in the air of the car. "Just shut it off. Find the mercy in your soul to…"

"Okay, you just talked over the entire first verse. The second one's better; have some respect."

Wilson shook his head, incredulous. "I'm not even going to _ask_ howyou know the lyrics to this song."

"I _did_ live with Stacy for a few years, as you've so kindly reminded me." House paused, then added jestingly to lighten the mood, "She had this thing with angry, feminist Canadians."

"And you…?"

"Look, the Rolling Stones and I are going through a rough patch," House divulged evenly.

"Really."

"Yes. I watched them at half-time of the Superbowl and haven't listened to them since."

"What?" Wilson asked, a hint of an amused smile playing on his lips. "Did they remind you that you're getting old?"

"_No_, they reminded me that _they're_ getting old."

"Oh, yes, I forgot. You don't do that 'aging' thing."

House shushed him and jutted a finger at the radio as the second verse kicked up:

_You're essentially an employee and I like you having to depend on me  
You're kind of my protégé and one day you'll say you learned all you know from me  
I know you depend on me like a young thing would to a guardian  
I know you sexualize me like a young thing would and I think I like it_

"That's your verse, you know," House said with a smug grin on his face. Wilson burst out laughing and considered punching him.

"Okay, well, first of all, I don't work for you. I can't be your 'protégé' because I highly doubt that Cuddy would put up with _two_ of you, and I think _you're_ the one who does the depending."

House was unfazed. "And that last line?"

The younger man turned to rebut the claim but found that he couldn't. He rubbed the back of his neck, satisfying an illusive ache, knowing full well that House was grinning at his embarrassment. "Is this song over yet?"

House suddenly squinted as a flood of light streamed through the Corvette's front window. They watched as the tow rumbled to a halt beside their immobile car.

"Julie came through," House muttered, stretching his legs as he moved to get out of the car. He threw a sideways glance at Wilson. "I guess this means I owe her one."

The cold felt shocking against heated skin as Wilson stepped back out of the Corvette. He gazed around at the glass-still silence of the frigid night, stuffing his hands back in his suede jacket pockets. He turned to House as they waited for the man in the tow truck to meet them and organize his equipment.

"You," Wilson said,"owe me a chess game when we get back."

"If you insist, Jimmy."

-------------

_Quick postnote between this and the next chapter…_

The Chicago Tribune _just recently did an interview with Robert Sean Leonard (Wilson). Such a great, great article, but I thought I'd share some quick quotes, cuz they're kinda applicable to the story:_

"Some people ask me, 'Oh, why does Wilson want to hang out with House so much?' And I'm like, 'You idiot.' laughs House is designed to be attractive! He's brilliant, he's self-deprecating, he has a limp."

_Then he goes off on a tangent, talking about Hugh Laurie dropping his British lilt for an American tone:_

"And can I tell you, when you have dinner with Hugh Laurie speaking with his real accent… I miss that voice… As we know, I'm straight, but yeah, it's like, homina-homina-homina."

_This article is…words cannot describe. RSL is adorable. Anyone who'd like the whole interview, let me know in a review. I'll copy/paste it in a reply. If you're anonymous, drop me an e-mail._


	17. Chapter 17

_Hope everyone's enjoying their RSL stuff... :) On with the story..._

------------------------------------------

The water bottle in Steve McQueen's cage needed refilling. The mahogany-stained chessboard also required updating after days of settling for the computer version. House whisked away the pieces that had been captured, then turned his attention to his pet rat. Wilson shrugged the snow from his clothes and changed into a dry MacGill t-shirt and sweatpants.

House watched from the corner of his eye as the younger man collapsed onto the couch. Wilson blinked drowsily a few times before glancing at the clock on the wall.

"No you don't. You're the one who wanted to play now," House cut in before Wilson could even say anything. The older man shut Steve McQueen's cage with a metallic thwack.

The oncologist shrugged half a shoulder. "Yeah. I know."

"Would you rather go to bed?" House raised a suggestive eyebrow. Wilson lacked the energy to respond with much of a quip.

"I think… Sleep sounds good right now."

"It's only one o'clock."

"Three hours until I have to get up."

"You don't _have_ to wake up at four. You could sleep in like the rest of the human race."

"Easy to say for someone who does one case a week." Wilson stretched himself out on the sofa, examining the wrinkles in his sweatpants. "I have some appointments tomorrow morning with patients."

House was stalking the chessboard with his eyes. "I bet they're really important, too," he muttered irascibly.

"They're _dying_."

"Join the club," House retorted. "They just happen to be doing it quickly."

Wilson sighed, rearranging the pillow beneath his head, closing his eyes. The fact that he didn't answer annoyed House even more.

The older man shuffled loudly around the room, purposely digging through the heaviest books on the shelves and plopping them down audibly onto the coffee table. There was a rattle of glasses as he shifted the whiskey to the side, and a clatter of pills as he whipped them from his jacket and shook it a few times before selecting a couple. He tried to swallow extra loud.

"Jimmy. Are you _deaf_?" He paused, frowning at the quiet, curled figure who had chosen the couch over the bed. From his angle, he could just manage to see his eyes fluttering slightly, not quite breaching sleep.

House lobbed a magazine over towards him. The papers landed flawlessly on Wilson's head.

"Nice catch, Jimmy."

Wilson's voice was muffled, as he didn't bother to move the magazine right away. The darkness was welcomed, even if the pages reeked of whiskey and old newsprint. "House…"

"Well, throw it back. That's my favorite edition. I might share it, not _give _it to you."

Plucking the magazine from his face, Wilson rolled his eyes when he recognized the publication. "If they don't wear anything, there's no mystery," he critiqued with a bit of smile, throwing it back over his shoulder. He burrowed back into a relatively comfortable position against the sofa cushions. "Not exactly the most tasteful photo spread I've ever seen."

"Ah, I see—photos must dull in comparison to seeing it first hand, don't they?"

Wilson twisted his neck around so he could look directly at House like a disapproving parent.

"Oh, come on, Jimmy…though I'm sure Julie wouldn't be up for that pose on page fifteen," House added, smirking as he dangled the magazine to the well-creased, referenced page.

The oncologist shook his head, turning to face the other side of the room's wall. "What were we just talking about again? Oh, yes: there's tolerable and then there's rude—"

"And then there's hypocrisy."

"You're the one pouring over the magazine."

"'The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame.'"

"Thank you, Oscar Wilde." Wilson paused for a moment, listening to the mundane clicking of the clock and the tapping of House's cane against his Nike Shox. He pulled himself up and rested back on his elbows as he thoughtfully searched the ceiling. "'There are those who believe something, and therefore will tolerate nothing; and then there are those who tolerate everything, because they believe nothing.'"

House tilted his head as he referenced his memory. "James Joyce?"

"Robert Browning."

"Irish is the theme for the night, is it?"

"I was actually hoping sleep might be." Wilson paused. "And Browning's British, anyway."

"Next time I'm asked to recite classic literature while working on a diagnosis, I'll let you know." House frowned at him, tapping his cane demandingly against the floor. "So. You can either drag yourself over here and finish this chess game, or we can have a debate back and forth composed entirely of literary quotes."

Wilson rolled over to his side but didn't quite get up. "Is that an option?"

With mock-grandeur, House sat down on the chair opposite from Wilson's couch. Between them both set the stagnant chess game. After a brief pause, House rambled,

"'Two loves you have of comfort and despair… The better angel is a man right fair; the worser spirit a woman colored ill.'"

"I'm sure Julie would love that one."

"She can thank Shakespeare."

Wilson shook his head slightly, his cheek brushing against the pillow. "You don't strike me as someone who'd have their nose buried in Hamlet."

"And, Mr. Chess Champion, don't strike me as someone who'd want to keep putting off this game very chance he gets. Your day crappy enough to pack it in? Julie finally snap that last string of patience?" He broke off, in sarastic victory, "Oh, wait, I know this one: You're missing the kid so you'll be miserable around me."

Wilson didn't bother to glare, indicating his annoyance through detached indifference. "'How nice—to feel nothing, and still get credit for being alive.'"

"Vonnegut. Touché."

"Yeah." Wilson brusquely turned his back, facing the inside of the sofa. House watched, increasingly irked, as Wilson's breathing slowed to a drowsy rate.

"'I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy,'" House interrupted, his voice falsely light.

"Song lyrics don't count," Wilson grumbled, his voice obstructed by the pillow.

"You can't tell me lyrics aren't literature," House argued condescendingly. "Dylan? Springsteen? Townshend—"

"House, you just quoted Bohemian Rhapsody."

"Everyone likes that song." House waited for a reply, whether annoyed or amused—it didn't matter—but again his banter was left vacant, without reply. He waited another minute before deciding that he'd had more experience moping and could easily beat the oncologist. Wordlessly, he limped off to bed, willing to bet that Wilson would follow eventually.

------------------------

He didn't.

------------------------

In his half-slumber, half-conscious state, Wilson suddenly had the spontaneous feeling like he was lying back down on the operating table. The room was drenched in silver, but there didn't seem to be any walls within miles. In the distance, through the faint glimpse of glass doors beyond his feet—shoeless, he noticed—he could just make out a few shadowed figures lurking, watching.

He went to move but found he couldn't. "Almost done."

Wilson strained to see the source of the voice, but the will of the dream had paralyzed his movements. He could just barely make out a silhouette beside him, standing in a dusk-black coat. A familiar hand was clenched around a cane—but the cane had assumed the form of a rook, the curving shape dominating the lower half and rising to a rounded bulb at the top.

Wilson became increasingly aware that it was House poised above him.

With a finger, House traced an artless design over the top of the oncologist's head. Concern dissipated through Wilson's chest when he suddenly realized his own hair had been shaven. His head was just as exposed as the hundreds, thousands of cancer patients he must have treated over the years.

House kept murmuring something incoherent. The sound of syllables filled the expanse around him.

"House…what are you doing?"

"I just want to see what's here."

Their voices echoed in a way that made it seem like space had never caught words before. It was as if the virus of language had tainted the sterilized air.

Wilson twitched slightly as he felt something cool and metallic brush against his skull. He couldn't convince his eyes to rise. Beyond his feet, the shadowed figures had just advanced. Their faces weren't any clearer now, but some innate sense identified them in a second.

Julie was there. Damien was behind her. Wilson's parents and older brother, too. Their stares were marked in an unsettling intensity; Wilson watched them and yet couldn't figure out why.

Then he realized their eyes were missing.

In front of them all, blinking with opaque-black orbs, was Ian, holding Mia. A skinny, floppy-haired kid sprawled on the floor at their feet. Wilson heard the blood pound to a crescendo in his ears when he recognized that the boy was himself.

"House…"

"Trust me, Jimmy." The coolness felt like it was seeping through his exposed skin, as an icy splash of winter rain shatters into ice when it hits the pavement. "I just want to see…"

A frantic flood of panic squirmed its way up Wilson's spine, but he was held immobile by some disembodied power. "But you know already. I've told you."

"I just want to see."

He felt the cold metal growing into a pinpoint of intense frost on the top center of his head. Pressing down, pressing down.

"Don't you trust _me_?"

Abruptly, the ice expanded, like a shadow obstructed by malingering, salient light. Wilson cringed as he felt the invasive cut, and then his head was chaotically spilling out with thoughts and ideas and secrets, the introspective sprawling in an unheeded mess out in the open. His mind groped to retain the escaping memories, but felt them slipping out beyond the yearning grasp.

His empty head snapped up as he finally found House's face. The older man was so distantly expressionless that Wilson blinked, astounded and frightened.

"It's your move, Jimmy," he said, and then he fluttered like window blinds into nothing.

-----------------------------------

Wilson didn't realize he'd fallen off the couch under House's arms were around him, picking him up.

"What the hell are you trying to do, Jimmy? You scream like that again and they'll think I came after you with my cane."

The younger man just barely realized he was trembling. A splitting ache wracked his head—he'd hit the coffee table when he'd toppled off the couch. House placed a hand over the welt, examining the wet stain of red it left on his palm.

Wilson was still caught in a daze. He hardly noticed as House shuffled to and back from the bathroom with a damp towel, applying pressure to the wound until it stopped bleeding. Wilson's lips were moving slightly but no words came from it.

House rummaged through his coat on the chair, retrieving something, then leaned down to be eye-level with him.

"Here. Take one." The older man posed a Vicodin at Wilson's mouth, which was just parted enough to allow shallow breath to pass through. When he didn't move, House dabbed a path over his thin, pink lips with the pill, gliding along each subtle curve. He caught the inside of his mouth slightly, so the moistness urged the medicine to glide easier.

Wilson recoiled slightly, but House's hand gripped the back of his neck. The younger man gazed at the presence that compelled him to stillness.

Slowly, he let House place the pill on his tongue, like presenting a pebble to water and watching the ripples.

"Swallow."

House watched analytically as Wilson's Adam's apple bobbed, the younger man's tawny gaze never breaking with his. Before Wilson could interrupt the silence, House pushed him firmly back against the sofa, feeling the younger man's tension settle like a porcelain aura over him.'

House roughly kissed his forehead, lips smearing inexpertly in their haste. The bridge of Wilson's nose just brushed beneath the older man's stubbled chin. Eyes fluttering closed, the oncologist inhaled, his profile fitting like lock and key against House's neck. Here, his scent was almost strongest—that curious mix of cologne and coffee and audacity and medical. Wilson's eyes struggled to adjust to the proximity. House's gray scruff, scattered with varying gradients, loomed like stratus clouds.

Just below the neckline, Wilson knew he'd left biting kisses several times. Subtle, purple-blue ovals littered across his collarbone. But Wilson never marked his neck, an obvious place where others would easily see it. He suddenly had the urge to lean in and swirl his tongue around the harsh, abrasive stubble. Wilson breathed in deeply, murmuring nonsensically as House's fingers dug harder into his waist.

"What's wrong, Jimmy?"

A ragged sigh escaped from the younger man. He wet his dry, winter-chapped lips. "Nothing…nothing's wrong."

"Your voice drifts when you lie." House pulled away slightly, his eyes brittle. "And you're lying."

Wilson gazed at him, his face awash with fatigued submission. "Is that what you want to believe so badly?" he asked quietly. "Nothing's right unless it's screwed up, is that what you need?"

"Truth," House said simply, sternly. "I see every aspect of you but what's really going on in your head."

Wilson hesitated, breath skipping in his throat as the dream forebodingly floated back. "You know what I'm thinking." "If I knew, I wouldn't be asking you, would I?"

House scrutinized the younger man's face, preserved in an ethereal expression, indicating the dream still claimed a part of him. He rarely saw the rattled look on his face. Somewhere along the line, the older man realized, Wilson had become immune to House's sarcasm and understanding of his defensive rejection. He'd even transcended House's manipulation.

He looked disturbingly distraught now. But there was never a case House admitted he couldn't figure out. He wasn't starting now.

"You know, hitting your head against the table repeatedly isn't going to fix dinner," House commented as he moved to the other side of the sofa, sitting down beside him. "It's a bit childish, don't you think?"

Wilson continued to rub gingerly at his head. He'd also found a particularly interesting spot to stare at on the ground. House leaned over dramatically as if to inspect the object himself.

"I see. You're upset because you haven't vacuumed my crumbs off the floor. The sweeper's right in the closet, Jimmy, if it's bothering you so much."

"Would you have done the surgery?"

"What?"

A flicker of reality passed over Wilson's face, shoving his dream into the catacombs of his mind. He dropped his hand from his head. "Uh... nothing." Rubbing at his face, he muttered, "I just wasn't sleeping well, that's all."

"Maybe it's because you're on the couch."

"Maybe it's because it's been a long day."

"...which you're making even longer by sleeping on the couch." House looked him over, disapprovingly. "Come on. Bad memories of divorce here. Get up and come to bed."

"I don't..."

"Fine. Then get up and let's play chess."

Wilson remained speechless as House moved around to the other side of the board game. He grinned, trying to crack the solemn exterior Wilson so stealthily wore.

"It's your move, Jimmy."

Wilson stared at him momentarily. House could get ridiculously, obsessively stuck on one idea if he put his mind to it. The awkward silence had even drowned out the clock, forcing sound into submission. The younger man rubbed his hands together for lack of anything else to do.

"House... I don't know what more you want to know about me."

"I want to know why you don't want to finish this game. Maybe it's because you're losing so badly."

"This has nothing to do with the game, House."

"What is it, then?"

"You..." Wilson weighed the words he'd been thinking. "You capture each piece so you can piece me together."

"That's a shrewd way of looking at it. A bit egocentric, but shrewd."

"Come on, House. You're the one who made these rules anyway. A piece for a story. Why not...I don't know...clinic hours for the trade instead? Or washing dishes?"

"Because Cuddy likes torturing me even more than she loves her tight shirts. And you do too good a job with the dishes anyway. I wouldn't take all that soapy enjoyment away from you."

Wilson kept staring at him, insistent for a reason.

"So, what," House said quickly, spinning his cane between his hand, "if your theory holds true...a chess piece for a piece of you...what happens when someone finally loses?"

Wilson shrugged, glancing off toward the side. "I... I guess the loser loses a part of the other."

"How?"

"I don't know," Wilson muttered, wondering if his fatigue was making this sound even dumber than he thought while wide awake. "Exchanging the stories... It's...it's like emotional intimacy, I guess."

House raised his eyebrows, scoffing. "_Emotional intimacy_? God, no wonder why women like you. You feed them lines like that…"

"House, I'm serious. Don't mock this."

"I'm not mocking. I'm just... amused."

"Fine, then, let's look at it from your point of view, then," Wilson jumped in, anxious to save at least some face. "Why are you in such a hurry for it to be _over_? I thought this was a source of truth for you. Won't the truth end to a certain extent once someone wins?"

House paused, thinking for a moment. "Ever read anything by Kierkegaard?"

"Who?"

"Danish philosopher. He had this theory that said it's better to have an unwavering belief in something that's wrong, rather than a tentative faith in the truth."

"Be wrong with confidence, essentially."

"Yes. Now, it is nice to see inside your head for once. It's nice to hear your side of the story, because that's your unwavering belief." He paused. "It doesn't necessarily mean it's right, though. Like your wedding, for instance."

"House, I think I can remember my own wedding."

"All three of them, I bet."

Wilson fought back a smile, pointing a chastising finger at House. "I didn't lie."

"I know." House shrugged. "But I remember it differently. Perceptions are different."

"I don't understand."

"So, I'm not reliant solely on this chess game to dig the truth out of you, because it's _your_ truth. I know what's relevant to me. The best diagnosis I can make is one based on what fits for me."

"For you, not the patient," Wilson acknowledged, grudgingly. "This sounds familiar."

"The patient's perception is different. They might be screaming about a headache," House nodded at Wilson, "while I can tell from my angle that it's because they've whacked a sizable chunk of their skull out. I feel I have a more objective view of the situation."

"And you think you have an objective view of me?" Wilson asked, dubiously.

House sat back in his chair. "Perfectly."

"How?"

The cane twirled a few times by his side before he began talking again. "In college, you said you were unsure about what you felt. You were missing home. The typical post-high-school dilemma. So you stayed late to talk lectures."

"Yeah."

"I saw," House continued, "something completely different. You were intelligent, steady, funny. And I knew you weren't just staying to talk lectures."

"You could've said something."

"I could've. But that would have been too easy."

Wilson watched him as the last statement came easily from his lips. And he didn't believe a word.

"You know..." Wilson glanced over the board, sighing. "I could've beaten you three turns ago."

House raised his eyebrows. "No."

"Yeah, if I hadn't been trying to drag this out longer. I could've won days ago." Wilson scratched the back of his neck, a small smile returning to his face. "But that would have been too easy."

"Well." House sat back pompously in his chair, poking Wilson's leg with the cane. "Prove it, Boy Wonder."


	18. Chapter 18

My computer doesn't hate me... It just dislikes me intensely. For some reason, I haven't been able to upload any documents over the past couple days. _Ta-da_, it's finally working again. :) Wonders will never cease. Enjoy...

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_Two weeks later… _

"Patient presents with scratchy throat, sudden blindness, and amnesia."

House blinked derisively a few times at the last symptom. "_Huh_?"

Cameron tried her best exasperated look, which amounted to more or less of a head tilt and a slightly gaping mouth. House snatched the medical history from her hands and paged through as they made their way through Princeton-Plainsboro hospital.

"Tell me. If he can't remember who is he, how can he tell if the blindness is a new thing?" He waited for an answer he knew he wasn't going to get. Cameron sputtered, leaving just enough time for Foreman to emerge from the patient's hospital room at the end of the corridor.

"He says his name's Winston Churchill."

"Great. So it's either amnesia or schizophrenia. Or his parents lacked some serious creativity. Any guesses?" House dug out a Vicodin, then narrowed his eyes when he counted only two ducklings. "And why doesn't somebody hunt down our wombat? Oh, wait—they _hibernate _this time of year, yes, I forgot."

"I'm here, House. I was just getting blood work."

House turned to the Australian, plucking the result sheet from Chase's hand. "Didn't screw it up this time, I hope."

"This time…?"

"Dr. Wilson might cut you a break. I won't."

Chase bit his tongue, settling back among Cameron and Foreman. The latter two tossed him curious looks, but the blond said nothing, returning to clicking his pen idly against his thumb.

"Well?" House peered over the medical information, perpetually annoyed. "Give me _something_."

"Dissociative fugue?" Cameron suggested.

"No. We didn't find him wandering around anywhere."

"Head trauma," Foreman said assuredly.

"Or shock of some sort," Chase added. "Where _did_ we find him?"

If Cameron had the ability to be less concerned, she might have smiled at the absurdity of the case. "He showed up at the hospital. He said he needed to warn people about Germany."

"_Greeeaaat_," House drawled. As if the world didn't have enough mentally unstable people, they had to find their way into his diagnostic care. "Here's an idea. Foreman, you set up some CAT scans; Chase, you quiz him on WWII history. Cameron… I don't know. Look pretty for the Prime Minister. Page me if he declares war."

The ducklings scattered in their skeptical but obedient ways. House limped toward the end of the hall, where Wilson was waiting with his hands on his hips and an amused grin on his face.

"Does he _look_ like Churchill?"

"I don't know," House said flippantly. "Haven't seen him."

"Oh, that's right. You don't talk to patients."

"Give me one good reason I should. Unless, of course, it _is_ Winston Churchill and this is his second coming or something. Should I have been expecting this?"

Wilson chuckled as they turned the corner to the cafeteria.

------------------

The oncologist had just snagged a turkey and mustard sandwich from the deli line when he caught sight of Cuddy loitering around the Reubens. House limped over, jutting his cane in the direction of his food.

"You can't hold my sandwich hostage. It's done nothing to you."

Cuddy pursed her well-glossed lips, crossing her arms over her chest. "House. We need to talk."

"My blood sugar's telling me I need to eat."

"You don't _have_ a problem with your blood sugar."

"Do you want me to? No, I didn't think so. Then move. Listen to my stomach, at least."

Cuddy reminded herself of the logical reasons why she kept House around and took a five-inch-heel step to the side. House retrieved a sandwich, then nodded at Wilson to pick up a bag of Lays potato chips while he was in line.

"He doesn't still pay for you, does he?"

"It's rude to turn down the offer," House replied.

"He doesn't offer; you _make_ him."

"He lets me." House smirked, and Cuddy paused at the smile Wilson returned to the older man.

"Well, we're talking." Cuddy drained a pinpoint-sharp glare into him. "_Now_."

"Don't I get to speak to my attorney?"

Wilson handed over the cash for both meals. He followed House when the older man gave a prompting nod off toward one of the back tables by the window, which Cuddy was stalking off to with remarkable speed despite her shoes and tight skirt.

Cuddy waited for House to sit down, eyes perusing Wilson like she would a patient's medical results—slightly suspicious, waiting to find a piece of information that would make sense of all the symptoms.

She folded her hands in front of her, as if she were trying to retain some professionalism despite the circumstances. "House. I put up with a lot from you. _Wilson_ puts up with a lot from you."

"And I put up with a lot of frilly, low-cut blouses and ugly ties. I'd say that makes us even."

"House. This has to stop."

"What?"

"_This_." She looked surprised, even a bit perturbed, that House insisted on being purposefully daft. Her hands briefly flailed in a gesture. "_You two_."

Beside him, House could see every tendon in Wilson's body stiffen. It was one thing for his ex-wife to know. It was quite another for word to be leaking around the hospital. In contrast, the older man held no regrets and would have perhaps even lobbied for Cameron to announce it to everyone—he reveled in that certain, superior joy of shocking people.

Besides—and though he was lax to admit it—he was getting increasingly tired of hiding Wilson like a dent in the wall covered by a picture frame. If their relationship wasn't acceptable to people, well… House didn't especially like people to begin with. There was no threat of a loss in that respect.

But House could feel the tenseness spreading in Wilson's limbs, so he dredged up a calm, expressionless face.

"First you threaten my sandwich, now my only friend?" he asked mockingly. "Is Steve McQueen in danger, too?"

Cuddy eyed him firmly. "House, you know what I'm talking about. You _two_."

"Two _what_?"

"You two…" Cuddy kept blinking like she'd gotten an inordinate amount of mascara in her eyes. "_Together_."

House decided to keep staring, clueless, since he'd run out of smart aleck retorts and Wilson's voice seemed to have left on vacation. He counted at least a dozen people around the cafeteria who were listening in on the conversation, trying to look obliviously subtle about it.

"I mean…you _are_ together, aren't you?" she asked quietly.

"Together? Like, a _couple_?" House outright laughed, and only afterwards did he realize laughing was far from what he'd do if Cuddy had assumed any other lie was true. For good measure, he tossed a blithe look around the room, as if encouraging each eavesdropper to share the joke. He turned back to Cuddy, jutting a finger at Wilson. "He's lucky I let him in the same apartment complex."

She glanced to the younger man for some additional information, but the oncologist just shrugged, preoccupied with unwrapping his turkey sandwich.

"Look, House," Cuddy began in her disciplining tone, "I'm sure you find these rumors entertaining, but there's no reason why Wilson should be dragged into this just because you think it's funny. Personally, I don't care what you do in your spare time, as long as it doesn't interfere with this hospital."

"Fine, then. We're in agreement."

"But this _is_ interfering with the hospital. I've had a few people mention things—"

"A few people," House said, patronizingly.

Cuddy frowned, her lips taut. "Cameron told me—"

"Look, just because I don't want to date her doesn't mean I'm going to pick up Wilson."

"And Chase said—"

"Chase says whatever will help him."

"How is your relationship with Wilson going to help _Chase_?"

"Apparently not much, considering we don't _have_ a 'relationship,'" House shot back.

"Actually." Wilson broke in unassumingly. "We do."

Cuddy and House both turned with the same surprised expression sewn across their faces. Wilson had given up on his lunch, returning a steady gaze at Cuddy.

He didn't say anything more. He didn't have to.

-----------

Julie dropped off Mia later that evening, along with the phone number where she and Damien could be reached if needed. She'd been trying to leave the apartment for the past ten minutes.

"Her bottle is in the left side of the bag; you can heat it, but don't overheat it; watch for the steam, you'll be able to tell when it's done. Test it on your finger, first. And there should be enough diapers in there to last the weekend; and if she starts getting cranky she has this one rattle that usually calms her down; or you could sing—do you know any songs? Little rhymes, you know… Oh, never mind. Just talk to her, she likes to hear the sound of voices. It's a bit chilly so I brought along some blankets for her. Make sure she sleeps on her back or side—check on her during the night. Here's the crib—it unfolds. Oh, and if her color looks a bit off, I left the number for her pediatrician—"

"You _do_ know we're both doctors, right?" House cut her off.

Julie paused, looking him over as she tentatively relinquished the baby's bag to him, then placed Mia in Wilson's arms.

Wilson murmured a hello to his daughter but couldn't help asking, "Where's Damien?"

"In the car." Julie nodded briefly to her Jetta parked against the curb. "We're kind of in a hurry."

"Yeah. Friday traffic is horrible," Wilson said. "So you guys…got a place to stay or something?"

"His family lives in Cape May. We're just going for a visit," Julie repeated the same story she had over the phone. "Back by Monday."

"Aw, come on, I'm sure there's enough time to drop in and say hi," House interrupted with a marginally suspicious smile. "Let's see the guy. I'll give you my opinion."

"Somehow, I think I'll survive without it," Julie said. She gave Wilson a grateful smile and something less so to House, before pulling the door shut behind her.

It took all of five seconds for the baby to start crying.

-------------

"People claim God gave man a conscience and free will. If He was so smart, why the hell didn't he include a mute button?"

Wilson could just barely hear House over Mia's wails, which seemed deafeningly impossible to have originated from her tiny body. The oncologist rested his head against the couch and rocked her back and forth. House was rummaging through his cabinets for another container of Vicodin.

"Well, there has to be some penalty for sex," Wilson said wryly with a smile.

"Pay for your own sins." House threw him a grousing look, then held up the baby's pink and white bag like it contained one, if not several, weapons of mass destruction. "What do you want with this?"

"Uh…" Wilson rested Mia reassuringly against his shoulder, rising to his feet to try and walk off her crying. "Heat up the bottle if you can."

"If I _can_?"

"If you _would_."

House baulked for a second. "Why do I have to make the food? She's your kid."

"Do _you_ want to hold her?"

The older man gruffly turned away. "Where's the bottle?"

Wilson couldn't contain the smile that spread across his face as the pots and pans clamored from the kitchen. "Well, she has my hair… And she's just as cranky as you are," he called.

"That's nice, Jimmy, but I'm sure Julie would like to be acknowledged for her genetic contribution." He ran the water, filling the smallest pot, and then set it back on the stove. He shook his head. "I can't believe we're missing the Mets game for this. Dugout seats, Jimmy, _dugout seats_!"

"Hey, you wouldn't have _had _those dugout seats if Delgado hadn't given them to me."

"He's obviously still not in his right mind after hospitalization. _I'm_ his doctor._ I_ cured him."

"Actually, I think I came up with the trichinosis idea."

"After I practically prompted you with the answer." House fiddled with the dial on the stove. "How hot is this supposed to be?"

"Just put it on medium. We'll test it when it starts steaming." Wilson wandered into the kitchen, Mia's cries more resembling whimpers as she quieted down in her father's embrace. "But at least Balleta called you."

"_Pff_. That was a slightly less friendly voice mail."

"Well, he did lose his job."

"It's not my fault I got him fired," House retorted. "If you're going to be dealing money around, keep your mouth shut. And get a better suit." He shut the kitchen cabinet with exhibition, then griped, "Cameron and Chase owe us their _souls_ after we gave them those tickets."

"Well, you said they needed all the baseball education they can get. I'm sure they're enjoying themselves. Foreman wasn't that happy you excluded him, though."

"Let's have a pity party. I'll bring the popcorn; you rent _Field of Dreams_."

Wilson smiled again, wandering back into the living room as he gently rubbed Mia's back.

---------------

"Here. It's done. Not scalding, not cold. Take it."

Wilson glanced up from the couch at House, who had grudgingly come bearing gifts—the bottle, specifically.

The oncologist placed a finger to his own lips with a free hand. "Shhh," he mouthed. "She's sleeping."

House's jaw dropped, staring accusingly at the still, content baby in Wilson's arms. He lamely held out the milk formula. "I did _not_ just make this for her not to drink it."

"Shhh. She's quiet now. We can reheat it later."

"No, _you_ can reheat it later."

"House." Wilson tilted his head in a humoring fashion. "It didn't kill you, did it?"

"I barely escaped with my life." He sighed dejectedly, setting the bottle onto the coffee table. "Well. Put her in the crib and let's finish that chess game."

Wilson gazed back to the game board, which they'd been sporadically tinkering with over the past fortnight. Each move was growing carefully calculated and even reserved at times; neither had managed to capture any additional pieces. Wilson had a feeling the conservative approach was going to finally break tonight. House could only suppress his aggressive game strategy for so long. It was about time, too, considering the younger man had mentally plotted out his own plan of attack on House's king.

"All right." Carefully, like a jeweler setting a gem onto a ring, Wilson laid Mia in her crib beside the couch. Returning to the sofa, Wilson ran his eyes over the chessboard.

"I believe it's your turn," House said.

"And I believe…your pawn is mine." Wilson immediately swung his queen across the board, capturing House's piece in a flurry.

The older man raised a shocked eyebrow, seriously beginning to think that Wilson might have lied about being chess champion. "You're moving your _queen_ for a _pawn_?"

"Sometimes," Wilson said enigmatically, "huge risks make sense within the context of the game. You should know that."

"And now I take it _you_ want to know something."

"Yes. But quietly," he added, nodding significantly to his slumbering daughter. "I want to know… where this goes from here."

"Where what goes?"

"This. Us. I was thinking today at the cafeteria, with Cuddy."

"She has a horrible ability to make people do that. Think."

Wilson rolled the pawn around between his fingers before setting it beside the other pieces he'd captured. "I'm serious, House."

"You always are."

"Not always." Wilson paused. "It's just… I've never been at a point in my life where I felt I could stay. Educationally, in my job, in relationships. Staying is like—I don't know—relinquishing something. Relinquishing potential."

"I'm not big on marriage," House quickly said. The thought seemed more bizarre and awkward the longer he dwelt on it; so, like every other uncomfortable notion, he shoved it back into the crevices of his mind, sure to mock with his disgusted expression.

"Me neither," Wilson hastily agreed.

"Besides, as they say: Rules are the building blocks of temptation."

Wilson mulled it over for a second. "Who says?"

"If I say Socrates, you'd be impressed. But actually, _I _say. And _you_ prove it. And I don't think your Rabbi buddy would be keen on a fourth ceremony. Particularly when he saw the groom…uh, grooms…whatever."

The younger man realized he'd pushed far enough to make even House uneasy. Well, that was something. Wilson scratched his head, carefully rubbing at the welt that was still present from his nightmare battle with the furniture.

"I'm not proposing," he muttered, turning his attention back to the pawn. "I just wanted to know what happens after this…stage. This point where we're at. I mean, is this going to be it?"

"Jimmy, what is it? Six, seven months? Look, I don't know. I don't have our first date circled on the calendar with little hearts and stars. I'm not big on anniversaries. If you want sentimental, surprise, this isn't it."

"I don't want sentimental."

"Good. Because you've obviously sucked at it in the past." House ran an analytic gaze over the game board again, as if it might have changed in the meantime. "Maybe this…changes. You told Cuddy, so I'm guessing you're not in denial anymore."

"I'd rather have us tell people than let Cameron spread the news like it's some forbidden rumor."

"How idealistic of you, Jimmy." House rubbed at his chin. "But that doesn't mean this gets any easier."

"House, it's not easy being _friends_ with you. You said seven months? Come on. I've had how many _years _of practice to make this work?"

The younger man waited for a response that was, for once, slow in coming. House went to move one of his pieces, but Wilson batted his hand away.

"Hey. Your story, remember."

"You used your queen to take my pawn. I think that's a bit unfair, isn't it?"

"You dodging your own rules is unfair. Fess up."

"Fine. And keep your voice down, unless you want to wake your kid."

Wilson grinned, and House unscrewed the lid of his pill container and dug out a Vicodin.

------------------------------

_House_

Growing up, I remember my parents were the photocopy ideal of every sitcom family on television—and that was before TV was even big. In fact, I'm convinced they _invented_ the prototype.

You've met my parents, like I've met yours. It would be funny to have them meet now as in-laws of sorts. Really screw with their heads. Yours would be speechless, I'd bet. My father might consider killing me. My mother would offer me that pathetic, hand-tapping, reassuring smile and give me some line about how as long as I'm happy, she's happy.

She thinks the world works that way. She's lived in bubble all her life, while my father goes around popping them.

They married young, in the days before—_cough-cough_—divorce was even thought about. You split up, you committed adultery, you went to Hell. Have fun. I hear the summers there are splendid.

They've been married fifty-some years now. The year doesn't matter much anymore. It's like they'd been _born _married. Eighteen, nineteen-years old, exchanging vows, and you grow to fit the other person, not to become your own man or your own woman.

Good or bad, it's a matter of opinion. But they're still together, so something must have worked.

It certainly wasn't me keeping them together, that's for sure.

For the first sixteen years of my life, my father had some delusional belief about me playing football. As if my physical built wasn't enough to dissuade him, my lack of enthusiasm wasn't either. You said you played baseball and loved it; my father thought I should try out for football, since he was a lineman back in school. It took one face-plant into the dirt, turf smashed into my helmet, that I concluded a sport where you intentionally try to mangle the competition was stupid. There's no thought or logic involved in ramming three-hundred pounds against three-hundred pounds.

My mother, as I recall, thought it was "simply wonderful" that I was focusing on medicine. My father claimed it was a glaring sign that they'd done something irreversibly wrong while raising me. Apparently, if I didn't want to run somebody over in sport I was inhuman. So I did some soccer to make up for it. But only a little.

What are you going to do with Mia? What are your expectations? Because I guarantee you now, that crying gets a hell of a lot more annoying when words replace it. It's easy to care for her at this age, because her neediness is subjective to her instincts: She's hungry, feed her. She's crying, hold her. She's…done something in that diaper that I am never in my life going to touch (are you listening?), so you clean it up. But when she's older, and she's throwing contradictory thoughts and plans back at you, then what? What stance are you going to take? Whose side are you on?

My mother confessed allegiance to _All that is Right and Worthwhile_. My father wanted me to do something that required muscular strength and testosterone tenacity. I became a doctor and enjoy inflicting some level of discomfort on patients in order to heal them. So I combined both their expectations. I hope they're happy.

If they're not, I don't care. That's my stance. I side with myself.

And recently I've sided with you, or something to that effect. Where do we go, you asked? How the hell should I know? I hadn't even realized you dug out a roadmap and were planning a trip.

We're here, that's good enough for now. I don't plan on leaving my job anytime soon, unless of course Cuddy does something drastic, like moves me to the clinic permanently as some sort of retribution for all those times I've insulted her clothes. And you aren't leaving oncology. You know too many people depend on you, and that's one thing you can't do: say no, stand on your own terms.

And your kid's here, so you wouldn't leave Jersey. And I'm not moving out of this apartment, because it would take me too damn long to clean everything out, and over my dead and particularly disgruntled body would I let anyone touch that piano. Have you _seen_ these moving trucks lately? Doom, death, destruction on wheels. I don't think so. It stays right here.

So we'll stay here, too. I don't know. Hope you weren't planning on anything big. No frilly dresses, no ugly ties (except the ones you already have), no fancy ceremony. Just us, just here.

That's enough for me. Even _you _might not need anything more, and that's saying a lot.

_End_

-------------------------

House finally dragged his eyes up from the chessboard. Wilson better have been reveling in that story, he thought, because he was never going to say all of that again.

He sighed, realizing he should've figured: Wilson had fallen asleep. The oncologist's head was resting on top of his folded arm. House set the game to the side once again, dimming the living room lights.

He limped over to the crib once, peering to make sure Mia's airway was clear. Her face was soft, untouched, saturated in the pale contentment of unconsciousness.

Smiling, he noted that Wilson and Mia almost slept the same. House quietly moved Wilson's legs over to the side a bit to give himself more room, then settled on the opposite end of the couch for the night.


	19. Chapter 19

Dusk still floated around the room when House woke up with a shooting cramp in his leg. The pain coursed through with enough intensity to make him consider digging out that morphine again.

With a glance, he determined Wilson and the baby were still asleep. Last time he'd dropped almost everything on the bookshelf trying to retrieve the medication. Racket was not going to be tolerated, especially since Wilson was such a light sleeper when it came to noise.

Stiffly, House pried himself from the concave grasp of the lumpy couch and limped over to his jacket to retrieve the Vicodin. His saving grace rattled out into his slightly trembling palm, and he swallowed a few tablets with disregard for the exact number.

Whiskey sounded good right now, too.

His bare feet plopped against the kitchen floor. The bottle gave a gasping pop as he opened it.

Then the crying started. Again.

"Shit." House took another long drink, looking up at the ceiling for invisible support or patience as Mia's laments grew increasingly louder. He mentally estimated how long it would take him to quick drink off the pain in his leg, shuffle back over to the couch, and fake sleeping before Wilson woke up at the sound of Mia's cries.

Well, he wasn't going to be beating anyone in a sprinting contest any time soon. The last thing he needed was a lecture from Wilson about drug and alcohol consumption at two in the morning. He cursed once more for good measure, set down the whiskey, and moved to the crib.

"No offense kid, but you're pretty ugly when you cry." House looked around, as if searching for sanitation gloves or some sort of tool he could use to pick her up and not have to touch her. He sighed, annoyed, at a loud wail. "Okay, o_kay_."

It was different holding kids in the hospital. They were either newborns who were quickly whisked into parental arms, or beset with runny noses which were easily solved with a tissue, or something a bit more serious which required a scrawled prescription, not a cuddle.

House stared warily down at the baby in his arms, who had calmed her cries down slightly.

"I'm not singing, I'm not rocking, I'm just holding until your father's paternal instincts kick in. He's supposed to have some unearthly ability to sense when something's wrong with you." He glanced over at Wilson, who was still sleeping soundly.

Mia's red face clashed with her pink outfit. House wrinkled his nose at the clothes.

"Pink bears and…what is that? A dog? A cat? Doesn't matter, it's ugly. I never thought I'd say this, but I think even Cuddy could help you with some fashion advice."

Mia murmured, her eyes crinkling. She was on the verge of a smile or cry or bathroom break. House cringed and wanted neither of those three.

"All right. Your mother said you like noise. Voices. Whatever. I'm not talking to you anymore because I'm tired, and I don't even pay Steve this much attention." House cradled her head carefully in one arm while rummaging for the remote with the other. "Here. ESPN will probably be rerunning the Mets game. Look for Aunt Cameron and Uncle Chase in the crowd. They're both pretty and clueless—can't miss 'em."

House muttered another curse under his breath when he discovered some fishing tournament was being aired instead. Disgusted, he flipped through the upper channels on the television.

"Maybe _General Hospital_ is on. Ever see that? The stupidity of these people is simply amazing." House stopped searching for the show after a second time through the channels, with no success. "Well, for another time then." He again looked down at Mia, who had an increasingly awake look on her face.

"Oh, no." House shook his head. "You're not staying up now. You're going to sleep, because _I'm_ going to sleep, and I'm not waking your father because he's miserable and then he'll complain that his hair doesn't look right tomorrow…" House sighed as Mia flailed a hand and managed to cling to one of his fingers. House retracted like he'd just been beleaguered by a leech.

"All _right_. Story time." House wandered from the living room and into the kitchen again, trying to ignore the fact that Mia's gurgles were an obvious sign that she was moving away from sleep. "Since my stories apparently knock your father out, I'm betting you inherited his boredom gene." House paused leaned awkwardly against the fridge, listening to the humming against his back, and taking the weight off his throbbing leg. Mia murmured again.

"Well, you are impatient. Fine. Once upon a time, there was a mythical baseball player who thought he'd give a pair of magical tickets to the King. Unfortunately, the Jester thought he'd impress the baseball player by stealing the King's diagnosis, so the baseball player—obviously impaired after his illness—stupidly gifted the tickets to the Jester. The King was very upset, and was cursed with a crying baby for the rest of his days. The end."

"That's not how the story goes."

House closed his eyes for a moment before turning around. Wilson was slouched, smiling, against the doorway to the kitchen.

"How long have you been standing there?"

"Long enough to place you on the ballot for Mom of the Year."

"Shut up. I'll wake you next time."

The glow on Wilson's face disgusted and embarrassed House enough. The older man frowned, limping over to him.

"Well…" Wilson grinned, enjoying House's discomfort. "Finish the story. What happens next?"

"What happens next is _you_ take the kid, first of all…" House transferred Mia, still wide-awake and gurgling contently, to

Wilson's arms. "And secondly, I already said 'The End.' Story's over."

"Chess game is still up, though." Wilson nodded to the board. "Come on. She's awake, so we won't be going back to sleep now."

"Speak for yourself."

"You have the whiskey out. I don't think you opened it just to lie down again."

Reluctantly, House relented. Massaging his agonizing leg, he rescued his alcohol and Wilson carried Mia back to the living room.

----------------------------------------

A pawn shifted. A bishop moved. The queen took a deliberate detour.

House eyed Wilson carefully. He'd just put a quiet, drowsy Mia back into her crib. It had only taken an hour to get her back to sleep; it had only taken an hour to move an assortment of pieces without any captures achieved.

Wilson squinted his eyes at the chess board, which—given the time—was slowly starting to float before his vision. "Damn. You got me cornered in two places."

"Didn't you ever learn to keep quiet during chess? What if I didn't see those moves?"

"You saw them." Wilson sighed, then decided losing a pawn was better than relinquishing his last horse. He moved back in an L-shape, and House effortlessly took the pawn on his next move.

House didn't wait for Wilson to focus back. "What happened during the infarction?"

Wilson looked up. "You want me to tell you about the surgery?"

"I know what happened during the surgery. I want to know what happened. Not to me, to you." He set the pawn down beside his other pieces. "And Stacy."

Wilson hesitated. "Why are you asking this? What does it matter?"

"It doesn't," House said quickly. "It's over."

"Then why are you asking if it doesn't matter?"

"Because… Because you think it should."

"Do you?"

"Think it should matter?"

"Yes."

"No."

Wilson settled for the simple answer, since it required a simple response. "Then ask something else."

"But I want to know," House said.

"Why?" Wilson's face had grown taut. "If it doesn't matter—"

"It matters to you, so it matters to me." House leaned forward, eyes unrelenting. "Tell the story."

------------------

_Wilson_

They wouldn't let me watch in the surgery room the first time. I wanted to but Cuddy thought it would complicate things. I don't know how. Like she thought I might make the surgeons nervous or something if I were peeking in down through the glass windows at the top of the room.

She didn't care that I wanted to be there; she told me that Stacy _shouldn't_ be, so it fell into my responsibility to keep her company during the hours of your surgery. We'd already spent uncountable amounts of time in conversation on the phone, late nights and early mornings struggling to figure out what was right, what was wrong, and what level we were at where it just didn't really matter in hell. Where pain was just pain and stopping it was validated, no matter if you'd think our motives were faulty.

I was wrapping up at the office that night. I'd lost a young cancer patient earlier in the day. Her medical files and body scans were spread all over my desk like useless photo negatives. I couldn't put them away yet. I just kept rereading them, seeing her relentless, hairless head stare back at me from each blood test, each chemo treatment date, each time she thanked me for prolonging the inevitable. Her parents had even invited me to the viewing.

Sometimes, I understand why you're so damn miserable, so unreachable. It's selfish, but it's self-preserving, too.

I lifted my head when the phone rang. I'd been planning on visiting you downstairs in your hospital bed, but the call changed my mind. Stacy's voice was strained and unfamiliar over the phone, crinkling with static. She'd called from her cell.

"Where are you?" I asked.

There was a long pause like she didn't really know. "Some highway."

"Driving?"

"I pulled over."

"What happened? Are you all right?"

The static dominated the line, but it redefined silence simultaneously. "I... I can't do this anymore."

-- -- --

I met her on the hospital sitting grounds. Neither of us could deal with being at home, facing normalcy, when so much of our lives in the hospital was being reverted to upheaval. It was dark and bland outside and I can't even remember the temperature. Feeling was too intense to notice the obvious things.

We sat beside each other on the bench, across from the cold, faceless doors of Princeton-Plainsboro. And she told me you'd spoken to Cuddy about the first surgery, and that you wanted to be put into a chemically induced coma. And she told me about the other surgical option she could attempt--you didn't want it, but you needed it. Like friends, like love, like discipline. Didn't want, but needed. This was everything in one slit of the knife.

Stacy remained a dark shadow below the empty sky. The carelessness of the air engulfed us. And I realized you might be just like every single one of those other patients I see that don't leave my care living anymore. The sky was oppressive; existence seemed irrelevant. Because the finality of it all is waiting at the end, and I wondered if that's what it eventually comes to--as a doctor, in particular. You save so many and then you realize whatever you do, it's never going to lessen the burden of those you lost.

"He'll hate you," I said quietly.

"I know." Stacy wiped at her face, disgusted for crying. "But I can deal with that."

That's what was so incredible about Stacy, House. She was stronger than even you.

-- -- --

The surgery was scheduled for the next day--early morning, to make the most of time. Again exiled from the ER, Stacy and I once more ventured out to the bench and sat in silence. I had my hands folded stiffly in my lap, like a kid awkward in prayer. Her hands were clasped around a necklace. The cross caught the glimmer of the cataclysmic sun.

"I thought House said you were an atheist."

"Yes, well. Not believing doesn't really help anyone, does it?"

Her eyes were coal-satin black, silky with anxiousness.

"This has to work," I told myself, but I said it aloud to include her. "And when it does, maybe he'll...see things differently. He's not losing his leg, just the pain."

"That's the hope. And then it's all on him. It's what he makes of it."

"What he makes of us."

We sat there in stillness, two innocents already declaring their convictions to a dull and deaf jury. We knew our sentence before our hearing.  
And Stacy, she's a lawyer, so she knew it better than either of us.

She went to see you after they brought you out of the coma. I didn't, not immediately at least. I couldn't.

-- -- --

It took a day and half before I scoured up the nerve. Walking into your room was like returning to my wife after a night in someone else's bed. You were limp, a skeleton lost in lackluster skin, fire-blue eyes like daggers drained into your head. You sneered derisively at the guilt across my uneasy face.

"Get out."

"House…"

"_Get out_."

"I have to talk to you."

"You sure as hell didn't need my damn consult before you gave them the okay to rip open my leg."

"House, _please_—"

"You're _pathetic_, Wilson. Get out."

I blinked against the harsh stinging in my eyes. The hostility ripped me right down the center. All familiarity we'd ever shared was eradicated in an instant. I wasn't Jimmy, you were a stranger; the last day had annihilated over a decade of trust.

I didn't just save you to lose you. I couldn't. I wasn't leaving, not this time.

I pulled up a chair a safe distance across from your bed. You were still hooked up to a tangled assault of tubes, but I was certain your loathing glare had the same propensity nuclear fallout does.

"I don't care if you hate me," I lied calmly. "But what we did wasn't wrong."

"For _who_?"

"For you."

Your gaze was sane, and that's what rattled me most. "F--- off, Wilson."

I stared at you, disbelieving. "House, you're not the only one who was in pain. Stacy could barely _function_ she was so screwed up over this—"

"Nice to see that _I'll_ be able to function with my leg gone."

"They just removed the dead muscle. You still have your leg."

"If that's what you want to call it. _You_ try dragging along a dead limb."

"The limb is fine."

"Shut the f--- up."

"_No_," I snapped.

The hatred in your eyes suddenly froze. A sickeningly amused smile warped your face. "You think everything's going to be okay, don't you?"

"You can make this work—"

"You decided to take _my_ body and make _my_ decision for me. And now you have the nerve to tell me what _I_ should think."

"You're not thinking clearly."

"No, you want to know what's thinking clearly? Thinking clearly is when that damn vital flattens out to zero. When that deadened beeping hits a long buzz. I nearly _died_ in this bed, in this room, because my doctors were too stupid to see what was staring them in the face. And now I have to suffer because _you_ _two_ are too weak to deal with losing someone."

"House, what if _you're_ to weak to save yourself?"

"Get. Out."

A nurse who'd heard the screaming was there to usher me out. I wasn't allowed back into your room for the rest of your stay. Your orders.

_End_

---------------------------

Mia was still sleeping soundly. Wilson looked slightly pale, like he'd just donated blood.

House shook his head slowly. "I don't remember that."

"You don't or you don't want to?" The oncologist looked at him doubtfully.

"They still had me pulsing on morphine. I was drugged out of my mind."

Wilson examined his hands momentarily before meeting House's eyes again. "You were honest."

The pause hung in the air, not awkward, just reflective. Eventually, House nodded.

"So were you."


	20. Chapter 20

_Again, thanks to everyone who's been reviewing. The support and interest has been amazing. :) This is chapter 20 of 21 or 22 (it depends how I organize my notes for the ending), so the story's wrapping up. Enjoy..._

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

House really didn't give Wilson enough credit for being a good kisser. It wasn't something he could picture himself saying, nor something he'd think Wilson would expect to hear. So it just was never said.

It didn't mean it wasn't true.

In the beginning, House used to keep his eyes closed for an excessive amount of time. He had no problem uncovering Wilson from beneath his clothes; he memorized the way jeans, shirts, ties—everything contributing to distance and separation—pooled into a fabric puddle at the base of the furniture. And he'd let his eyes wander for brief moments along the faint, shallow muscle design etched across the younger man's body, hinting of a once thinner, once stronger person he'd foolishly missed.

But then House's eyes would close. From there, he'd mentally map out each trail of Wilson's lips and tongue, a faint brush of teeth, but he refused to watch. It took him weeks to admit the owner of the mouth.

And he'd complain if Wilson would try to talk while in bed, confessions whispered amid skin on skin. Once, he pushed Wilson away. The salty taste of his sweat-glistened body still stung his memory.

The younger man was flushed, breathless. "What?"

"Don't say that."

"But I do."

"I don't need to hear it."

Then, uninhibited, Wilson's mouth was on his again, limbs sprawling, convoluted in each other. And he whispered it anyway.

"Love you."

Wilson did, and that's what was frightening, euphoric, beguiling. Like so many other things of that nature, House would put to the side to investigate later, to pick apart in painstaking detail, to hold the sentiment up to the light and peruse it for damage.

If you look hard enough for something, you'll eventually find it.

----------

"Remember Saturday morning cartoons?"

Wilson creaked open an eye to the first day of the weekend. House was already up and drinking coffee, the steam swirling around in a silver-to-gold ribbon against the kitchen lights. He groggily lifted his head. Mia, in her crib, was stirring slightly but not quite awake yet, either.

"I never really liked cartoons all that much," he murmured, voice still croaky.

"Slap stick comedy not your thing?" House prodded.

"No, slap stick's all right. I loved _The_ _Three Stooges_." Wilson wiped the sleep from his eyes. "I just didn't find coyotes falling off of cliffs entertaining."

"You're no fun, Jimmy," House said as he set down his caffeine kick. "Your daughter has to grow up on some television. Might as well be the classics."

Wilson smiled a bit, rolling over to his side. He hadn't remembered how uncomfortable that couch had been. He'd slept on it for a month without complaint, despite the muscle cramps and college dorm pranks he fell victim to. Somehow, he figured it would all be worth it.

There was a decent assumption.

He blinked a few times, straightening out his vision, as he examined the chessboard. House had captured a fair share of his pieces: Both bishops, one horse, the bottle cap rook, and one pawn. Wilson only had one of House's bishops, one of his horses, and a pawn also. Then again, he was playing with a queen, which House had deprived himself of in the beginning. So, technically, Wilson had more firepower left on the board, even if he had fewer pieces.

Of course, "firepower" was slightly underestimating his position. Wilson noted that in two moves, he could successfully check—if not checkmate—House.

He wondered if House saw it, too.

"Come on, Jimmy." The older man limped in front of Wilson's line of vision. He tapped his shoulder with the top of his cane, adding mysteriously, "We're going for a drive."

"Funny, House." Stiff, Wilson groaned as he pulled himself into a sitting position on the couch. The clock on the wall indicated just after seven. The coffee pot was gurgling mundanely from the kitchen, reminding the oncologist of the other morning eating arrangements. He recovered the bottle from the coffee table and moved into the kitchen, setting up the water again.

"I'm serious. I have the day planned."

Wilson threw him a skeptical look over his shoulder as he turned the stove knob. "Uh… Let me guess. Get up, watch TV, consult the Vicodin."

"I'm hurt, Jimmy." House shuffled over to Wilson, tugging at the back collar of his shirt and brushing his lips against his neck. He inhaled the fading scent of shampoo and cotton, smiling to himself when he felt Wilson arch back to him slightly. He leaned into his ear. "Feed your kid. Grab some coffee. Then get dressed."

"House…" Wilson watched him curiously as the older man pulled away and limped back into the living room. Judging by his abrupt case of cabin fever, he'd been up for a considerable amount of time. "Where are we going?"

"That's an interesting question to ask. I think it's fair to leave you hanging, since you kept me in the dark, too." He paused. "But I assure you: This is a hell of a lot better than a freezing baseball field."

----------------

A few minutes later, Wilson had Mia cradled securely in his arms, the bottle warm to the touch but not overpowering. Intermittently, he glanced up at House, who was now idly flipping through the TV channels.

"Really. Where are we going?"

"Well, I know where your daughter gets her impatience from," House smirked momentarily before popping a Vicodin. Roadrunner was in the midst of a TNT detonation on the television screen. "You'll see soon enough."

Wilson thought for a moment, trying a different route. "Come on. The best bargaining chips are the ones where the other person knows the value." He raised an eyebrow.

The cane twirled by House's side as he considered. His eyes were brilliantly blue in the slender fall of the morning light through the window. "We're going to the hospital."

"Uh…okay…" Wilson wracked his brain for a reason. "Why? Cuddy call you for clinic?"

"No, this trip is going to be enjoyable."

"Your mysterious Churchill have a breakthrough?"

"No, we sent him home yesterday. Turns out that really is his name. His fever spiked, caused the blindness. We got the temperature down and _poof_, vision came right back."

"And all that talk about Germany?"

"Fever was _really_ high. Started rambling. Oddly enough, though, his in-laws _are_ making a trip in from Germany to visit this weekend."

"So Germany really is coming." Wilson smiled, shaking his head in amusement. "Nice, House. But that still doesn't tell me why we're going to the hospital."

"I figured we'd dispel some rumors."

Wilson let silence leak into the conversation. His eyes darted across House's face, trying to read his inscrutable expression. "What are you suggesting we do?"

House shrugged, turning back to the television. He shook his head in mock empathy. "Wile E. Coyote's fine until he looks down. _Then _he falls. Apparently, gravity's only effective if acknowledged. He should just keep running off the cliff, don't you think?"

Wilson had the feeling House was asking him to do the exact same thing. "House. I don't care if people know about us. I really don't."

"Good. Then you'll have no problem going to the hospital this morning."

"For _what_?"

"To let people know."

Wilson stared at him, completely baffled. "_Why_?"

"I don't know. Maybe we'll get housewarming gifts or something."

Wilson rubbed at his temples. The bottle was steaming on the stove. He tested a drop on his finger, then took it out, still shaking his head.

"Why do I have to prove our relationship?"

"You don't. I'm asking you to prove the _stage_ of our relationship."

"House." Wilson took the bottle from the water, wrapped it in a cloth, and returned to the living room. "I'm not going to parade around the hospital to make a point."

"Why not? I thought you were comfortable with that point. You told Cuddy."

"Yes, because that's what _normal_ people do. They don't hide relationships, but they don't…they don't _stand _on top of a balcony and proclaim it with a loudspeaker—which, I'm sure, is what _you'd _do, if you could get your hands on a megaphone."

House watched him carefully as Wilson picked Mia up to feed her. "I don't see what's wrong with it."

"No, see, _that_ isn't wrong," Wilson quickly acknowledged. "The reason why you're _doing _it is wrong."

"And why am I doing this, Jimmy?"

"For the shock value. You like to mess with people." He looked up. "Me, included."

House shrugged innocently. "Why can't that be a reason, too?"

Paused, Wilson searched the air for his frantic stream of thought, which was unraveling quickly. "I—I don't think we have to make a show of it."

"Embarrassed?"

"No, but I'm not making a fool of myself in front of everyone."

House pouted his lips. "And yet you insist on wearing those ties."

"Look, House. Nobody else comes into work proclaiming who they're living with. If Cameron and Chase hooked up, do you think they'd be flaunting it throughout every department?"

"That's because they're boring. We, on the other hand, are immensely more interesting."

Wilson watched him objectively for a moment, feeling the slight tug of Mia as she drank from the bottle. He had a point. They were…interesting.

"But I'm not an exhibitionist," Wilson said evenly. "Unlike some people."

"There are worse things than being an attention addict."

Wilson laughed in an attempt to belittle what House was asking him to do. His eyes passed fleetingly at the pills House dumped into his hand as they spoke. "Really. And what would those other addictions be?"

House swallowed the Vicodin dramatically and checked his watch. "It's… An hour since Princeton-Plainsboro opened its doors. I think they'd like a visit from two of its Department Heads."

Wilson looked back down at his daughter, who was drinking contently. "Mia's here. We can't leave."

"Bring her along," House said simply. "I'm sure she'd like to get out of the apartment, get some fresh air."

"I don't want her catching a chill."

"Amazingly, there's a thing they invented called 'clothes.'" House was already tossing Wilson's light-colored jacket at him, scooping up his own leather one. "Besides, what's the point of staying home on a Saturday morning? You don't like cartoons, anyway."


	21. Chapter 21

_All right... This is chapter 21 of 22. Thanks again for keeping up and reviewing. :) It makes my day. Happy reading..._

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The gust of heat was nearly overwhelming as the doors to Princeton-Plainsboro whooshed open, and the frigidness of winter retreated behind them. Wilson glanced around the main lobby, holding Mia close.

The secretaries were busy pouring information into the phone through lipstick-smeared mouths. A few frazzled looking people wandered about. An additional ten or so had patient ID bands on their wrists or were being wheeled about either in chairs or on beds, disappearing into elevators.

It was amazing how fast House could move with that cane. Wilson picked up his pace to keep stride.

"Did you ever see that movie _Three Men and a Baby_?" he questioned under his breath.

House stared at him like he'd asked if he'd ever bungee jumped with an ostrich tied to the cord. "No."

"Oh. Neither have I, really," the younger man admitted. "But I have this weird feeling like we're rewriting the script."

House looked from Wilson, to Mia, and back to Wilson. "Well, we're short a man I think." He examined the oncologist critically. "Why are you rambling? Are you that nervous?"

"I'm not _nervous_."

"Right. You're face is naturally that cardboard shade of gray." He glanced up, catching a familiar bounce in the step of someone with preposterously exquisite—if sometimes inappropriate—taste in clothing. "Ah, look. It's the ray of eternal sunshine."

"_House_." Cuddy stopped right in the middle of the room, nearly causing a wheelchair to swerve into another doctor who was scuttling by. She blinked. "What are you—Wilson, is that—?"

"Just thought we'd come in for a visit," House said, walking towards her.

Cuddy kept staring. "It's _Saturday_."

"Like I said, I'm patient-free today. But I knew you'd miss our company."

"Hey, Cuddy." Wilson nodded. "This is Mia."

"She's…adorable…" Cuddy forced a smile, but was busy regarding House like he was some random salesman who'd come knocking at her door after she'd just turned him away. "Are you…taking her on tour or something?"

"She's with the band," House said, jutting a finger to the baby. "Jimmy and I are the show."

Wilson looked like he was ready to camouflage himself against the nearest potted plant. He could feel Mia already starting to get fussy. Shrugging, he tried what was supposed to be a reassuring smile at Cuddy, gesturing to House.

"I'm humoring him today."

"That's love," Cuddy said wryly. "House, you don't know what you have."

"Oh, I have some idea."

---------------------

The elevator smelled particularly stale. Wilson wondered if he noticed it more because he wasn't drenched in his lab coat, or clutching a patient's file, or warily wondering about who House was going to antagonize next.

He watched the older man beside him as he hit the button for the whiteboard room's level.

"It's Saturday, House," Wilson reminded him. "Your team doesn't even meet today."

"They do if I have them running tests."

Wilson stared at him. "You _purposely_ gave them stuff to do at the hospital so you could drag me in, too, didn't you?"

"I want them to be there for the announcement."

"You know, I don't understand."

"There's an oxymoron."

"House." Wilson looked around in his flabbergasted way, waving his free hand articulately. "You act like our relationship is nothing between us, and yet you want to schedule the parade for everybody else to come and join in."

"I hate parades."

"Could've fooled me."

The elevator clicked, rumbling to a halt. Metallic doors parted and the two stepped out into familiar hallways they could have walked blindfolded.

"Did it ever occur to you, Jimmy," House said after a pause, "that this might have nothing to do with me, and everything to do with you?"  
"Is this exposure therapy again?"

"It's whatever you want to call it."

"What do you call it?"

House grinned. "Entertainment."

"Oh, yes, I forgot," Wilson sighed. "I make you smile."

"Don't act like it doesn't work both ways."

--------------------

House led the march down the hall and into the whiteboard room, where he had Cameron filing papers that were already filed. She looked up, surprise crossing her elfish features.

"House. I didn't know you were coming in today."

"Had some little errands to run," House said. He glanced over Cameron's shoulder into the paper-bursting manila envelope. "Why aren't those in alphabetical order?"

"Um…" Cameron paged through. "Adams, Adler, Baker, Brukowski… They are, House."

"Not by _last names_; by _illness_. I don't care about Adler; I care about her vasculitis."

Cameron sighed, then noticed Wilson loitering in the doorway. She broke into a smile when she saw the baby.

"Is that Mia?"

"No, he stole her from the maternity ward," House quipped. "Think the parents will notice?"

Wilson rolled his eyes, taking a step toward Cameron. She'd already deserted the filing to see the oncologist's daughter.

"Three weeks old now?" Cameron cooed. "Oh, she so cute…"

House grimaced at her high, lofting voice. "Congratulations, Cameron. You're voice just broken the sound barrier." He tapped Wilson's knee with his cane. "Well?"

"Well what?"

"Well…?"

Wilson's face was completely expressionless. If House couldn't read his eyes, he wouldn't have caught the transient glimmer in his irises. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"Is it really that obvious?" House smirked, then glanced out into the hallway. "On second thought… Let me track down the other ducklings that way they'll hear the announcement too."

"House, this is really…"

"Cruel and inhumane torture?" House suggested. "Yeah. Take it up with the Geneva Conference. I'm busy." He paused in the doorway, adding reflectively, "The wombat is a very elusive creature. Foreman, on the other hand, should be easy to pick out of a lineup. _Whoops_. Unintentional street joke."

"Don't lie, House," Wilson said, sharing a conspiratorial smile with Cameron. "You stay up at night making those lines."

"Don't flatter me, Jimmy. You and I both know we have _other_ things to do at night."

Cameron noted the amused sort of embarrassment that colored Wilson's face. He watched the older man limp down the hall, still smiling to himself even as he disappeared into the neurological wing of the hospital. She half-wondered if she'd ever looked at House the way the oncologist did.

"So." Cameron brushed a light finger along the baby's wispy hair. It was still dark, like Wilson's, but thinning out over the past week as he'd predicted. "You really do love him."

"You say it like you were expecting something different."

Cameron shrugged gently. "I don't know. I mean, I knew early on. It was obvious. Maybe that's why it took so long to develop. You both were too close to see it properly. Like…like describing your nose."

"Too close to see it properly." Wilson repeated it, as if to savor the lyrical worth of the comment. "And yet he wants to draw attention to it."

A slow understanding came to her. "Is that what today is? Is that why he brought you here?"

"That's just House," Wilson shrugged. "His reasons aren't…aren't society's reasons. They're not even reason's reasons."

"Are they right?"

"They're right by him, and that's what's important I guess, even if others would consider them wrong." He paused. "Did you ever read anything by Kirkegaard?"

"Who?"

"He's a Danish philos—"

Suddenly, Foreman came jogging into the room. "Has anyone seen Chase?"

"Uh…no," Cameron replied, confused by his rush. "I thought he was running some tests in the lab—"

"I'm here."

The blond squeezed through the door, past Foreman, between Wilson and Cameron, and then slipped into the adjoining room at a pace faster than what Foreman's had even been.

Wilson looked blankly at the other two interns.

"What is he doing?"

Foreman caught his breath, gesturing to Chase as he was trying to pry open an unused closet. "He's running."

"Well, we can see that," Cameron said.

They watched for a moment as Chase frenetically jiggled the storage room's handle, desperate to get in.

"Actually, I think he's hiding. Trying to, at least," Wilson contributed, befuddled.

Chase cursed as the door jerked open and an avalanche of stored papers tumbled out at him.

"But…_why_?" Cameron asked.

"He's not hiding. He is running, though."

Wilson, Foreman, and Cameron turned to see House leaning ostentatiously in the doorway. He had his cane secured under his arm and had apparently stolen Jell-O from the lounge, which he was intently eating with a plastic spoon. He held the green substance to the light. "What do you think? …Is this sewage-green or snot-green?"

Foreman shook his head, looking closer and closer to the point where he'd realize just how insane this internship had become. "You're _eating_, not naming crayons."

"At least I'm not eating crayons." House quirked an eyebrow. "Though that would be interesting."

"What's interesting," Cameron interrupted, "is why Chase is stuffing himself in your storage closet."

They again peered through the glass walls to the other room, where the Australian was, in fact, squeezing himself into the tiny compartment, littered with papers.

"We're playing hide-and-go-seek," House explained sarcastically. He scooped out half the Jell-O from the container and made sure to chew with his mouth open. "I guess I shouldn't really be looking, but oh well. I gave him until one hundred. And I counted _reeeeally_ slow."

Wilson stared at him. Suddenly, watching a coyote fall off of cliffs was sounding like the most normal way to spend a Saturday. "House, what are you doing? Isn't it enough to mess with me?"

"Why can't I tamper with multiple people?" House grinned as Chase stumbled over a box in the bottom of the closet before finally disappearing inside. "Besides, this is getting good. Did you see how fast he was running? Sign that wombat up for the Olympics—oh, wait, he's Australian. Damn it, and the US could've used another sprinter."

"What did you tell him to do?" Foreman demanded.

House rolled his eyes. "You are all so impatient. You get it from her." He pointed the spoon at Mia, who was somehow managing to sleep through all of the ruckus. "Or him." He gestured to Wilson, then waved a hand on second thought. "Or maybe I'm just the only sane one here."

"Yeah, _there's_ a logical explanation," Foreman said.

Between the rustling of papers and dull thudding of dropped folders, an Australian voice floated from the closet and back into the whiteboard room. "…I found it…"

"Ah, see. Chase, the Great Homing Pigeon, has successfully done his job. Anybody bring old bread to feed the bird?"

"House, _what_ are you _talking_ about?" Cameron asked.

The older man waited in silence as Chase tripped back out of the mess that had become the storage closet, a packet clenched in his hands. With a dramatic intake of breath, he handed the folder over.

"_Here_. Found it."

"Let's see, that took you…" House lifted Foreman's arm to check his wristwatch. "…Precisely four minutes, thirty-two seconds, and…I don't know how to count nanoseconds, so let's leave it at that." He nodded. "Under five. Your secret's safe with me."

Chase's shoulders dropped in relief. He didn't even seem aware that everyone else in the room was staring at him.

"What secret?" Foreman asked suspiciously.

"Oh, nothing." House clandestinely opened the folder as he spoke offhandedly. "Chase here just had five minutes to find this file for me, or else I'd tell everyone he kissed Wilson." His head shot up dramatically. "_Whoops_, again."

"_House_—" Chase's face dropped to a pale hue of white never yet seen on planet Earth. His blue eyes literally bugged out of his head. Frantically, he turned back to Foreman and Cameron. "He's _lying_—I swear, I never—"

"You know, you would've made a lousy priest," House concluded. He scooped out the rest of his Jell-O, then banked the empty container from his desk into the trashcan. "You'd spend more time in Penance confessing your own sins than listening to other guilty people."

"You're one to talk."

"You kissed him."

"I did _not_."

"Chase…?" Cameron stared at him.

Foreman's mouth was hanging open so far it was like someone had attached a string and anvil to his lower lip. "You _kissed_ him?"

Wilson kept quiet, but only because he knew House was waiting for him to say something.

"I—" Chase sputtered. "I—okay, I _did_, but it wasn't a _kiss_, it was—"

"It was some cute little Aussie greeting, right? That you just don't want anyone to know about." House said.

"_You_ said you wouldn't tell! I got you your damn file—"

"What file?" Wilson leaned over House's shoulder. "What is that?"

"This," House pulled it back into his chest, concealing the papers, "is my top secret folder."

"And secrets are worth so much to you," Chase retorted. His face had gone from a mortified white to a crawling-under-a-rock red. Cameron was stifling an outburst of emotion from her lithe frame—a laugh, an accusation, a joke, Wilson never really knew from her. Foreman looked about ready to leave on a rather lengthy vacation.

House smirked. "This file contains the medical and social histories of all of you." His eyes passed from Wilson, to Chase, to Cameron, to Foreman. "All the dirt ever dug up on you," he tapped the paper, "is right here. Girlfriends, boyfriends, phobias, interesting purchases." He glanced at Cameron. "_Very_ interesting…purchases."

The young woman suddenly turned defensive. "How would you know? Did you root through my trash?"

"You really should rip up your mail."

There were too many questions to ask all at once, so Wilson seized the most logical one. "Why was that folder stuffed in your storage closet?"

"Maybe because I was _storing_ it?"

"And you couldn't get it yourself?"

"Did you see all those papers in there? I'm not weeding through that mess. Besides, unlike me, Chase has two good legs and a guilty conscience. That's a recipe for speed."

While House was talking, Foreman suddenly snatched the folder from his hands.

"Hey—!"

"House, this is _invasive_," Foreman snapped. "It's one thing to _know _it; it's another to _write it down _for anyone to reference on a whim. You have no right to keep this stuff on us…"

"There's nothing in there." Wilson took the folder and tilted it upside-down, giving it a good shake. Nothing fell out. He opened it, revealing an unused space. It was completely empty.

They gaped at House, who was on the verge of laughter.

"You guys," he grinned, "are so gullible, it's painful."

"What—why did—how—?"

"Sentence structure. What was that, second grade? Let me know when the teacher gets to that lesson for you, Foreman."

"All right." Foreman spread his arms, as if clearing space for some sanity. "You called us into work today to do some filing and run some tests. Why the hell are you here to make that difficult?"

House paused thoughtfully. Wilson was almost amazed at how quickly he could segue from being radically random to honing in on his point. "Because otherwise… things just get boring." The older man tossed a meaningful look at Wilson. "And we are immensely more interesting than that."

Chase should have known the relieving silence was only temporary the moment Cameron opened her mouth.

"So—why did you kiss Dr. Wilson?"

"All right, everyone, we're done now."

House turned, trying to hide his surprise, at Wilson's sudden forwardness.

"Are we, Dr. Wilson?"

"Yes." The oncologist, still cradling his daughter, stared at House firmly before turning back to the interns. "We're leaving. Go back to filing, straighten out the closet, do the tests. Then go home and try to salvage what's left of the day."

"I highly suggest cartoons. Not kissing other people's boyfriends," House added wryly to Chase.

Foreman shook his head slightly, shock dominating his face as he stared at Wilson. The morning had been so bizarre already; he might as well ask and know firsthand. "Are you two seriously…? I mean, you and House…?"

Wilson saw that the older man was about ready to say something. Not now. He wasn't giving him the opportunity to twist the situation anymore than what he had.

Wordlessly, Wilson leaned into House, placing a simple kiss on his lips. Brief, a hint of tongue, a southpaw hand just brushing against his chest. He could practically taste House's surprise.

"There." Wilson looked back at the ducklings, completely free of embarrassment. He wished fervently to remember each individual expression on their faces. Priceless. "Does that answer your question?"

"It answers mine." House limped toward the door, nodding for Wilson to join him. "Oh, by the way—forget the filing. And the tests. Go home. Show's over."

"Why do I get the feeling it's just beginning?" muttered Foreman. With House and Wilson gone, he glanced at Cameron and dwelled on Chase, shaking his head and holding up his hands in surrender. "I don't even _want _to know."

---------------

It was freezing outside but House didn't especially care. He would've even rolled down the Corvette's windows to let the freshness flood the car had Wilson not reminded him of Mia, and the threat of her catching cold. So he settled for some slight heat anyway and classic rock on the drive back.

"See, now? Was it that hard?"

Wilson considered. "No. But you made it harder than it had to be."

"It wouldn't have been worth it otherwise." House smiled. "Kind of like that chess game."

"Which we're going to finish as soon as we get home."

"Confident that you're going to lose?"

The younger man returned a grin. "We'll see. It happens to be my move."

The ride home was inconsequential until they finally _got _home. Wilson cursed.

"Watch the language around your kid."

"House."

The older man looked up to where Wilson had nodded and to the figure standing, arms crossed, on the front porch.

"I thought she was in Cape May," House said as they parked.

Wilson shrugged, body tensing already for what he knew was not going to be a pleasant conversation.

Julie stared him down as he, House, and Mia emerged from the car. "Where the _hell_ were you?" she snapped.

"If you want, we can go right back," House offered.

"James, give me Mia. Right now."

Wilson's embrace instinctively secured around his daughter. He held up free hand, slowly shaking his head in a quiet request for reason. "Julie. Calm down. Come on. Let's go inside, let's talk—"

"_Now_, James. I want my daughter."

House stepped firmly between the two, in the guise of unlocking the apartment. Somehow, everyone did manage to go inside, but House seriously wondered if anyone had intentions of doing anything calmly.


	22. Chapter 22

_Okay... Finally done. Went on a bit longer than I planned. I guess I could've cut out some other stuff,but oh well. I'll probably be taking a writing hiatus, too, at least with House stories for a bit. Thanks again for reviewing, and__enjoy..._

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It was amazing how quickly the room shrank when three people stepped inside, jamming their hostility within four walls. Protectively, Wilson laid Mia down in her crib. He could practically sense Julie's anger throbbing in the room. House, meanwhile, was loitering in the doorway between the kitchen and living room.

"Anyone want a shot?" he asked glibly.

Julie kept staring demandingly at Wilson. "Where were you?"

"We—we were at the hospital." The surprise on Wilson's face stunted his words. "I didn't expect you home until _Monday_."

"Cape May is miserable when it rains," Julie snapped. "And I didn't expect to come by to pick up Mia and find an empty room."

"Julie." Wilson massaged his head. "_What_ do you think we were doing?"

"I don't know. I just know that Mia was gone. You could've left a note, rather than have had me worried out of my mind—"

"She's my daughter, too," Wilson interrupted defensively. "You don't think I worry when I don't have her with me?"

"Well, _I_ don't go dragging her out of the house on a whim."

"Right. You keep her cooped up in a nice little bubble," House sneered. The whiskey remained uncorked.

"_No_, but I don't take her on a tour of a hospital where's there's already germs and bacteria and disease floating around the halls."

"For God's sake," House snapped, "we _work_ in the hospital. You don't see _us _contracting the plague, do you?"

"We were just in a few offices," Wilson insisted. "She wasn't anywhere near patients' rooms."

"That's not the point."

"I'm beginning to think you don't really have one," House shot back. He studied her face, suddenly calm as the pieces fell into place. "Your hair isn't wet."

"What?"

"Your hair. It wasn't raining in Cape May." He paused. "You didn't even go, did you? What? Did things fall apart already with Mr. Rebound? He decide that fatherhood is just a little bit too stressful?"

Julie threw up her hands, disgusted. She didn't deny it, which was answer enough for House. "That's it. James." She reached out. "I'm taking Mia back home."

"It's still Saturday. I have her until tomorrow."

"Look, James, I'm not playing games. I'm not driving back out here tomorrow when I can just pick her up now."

"It's still _Saturday_."

"_James_." She moved forward, and Wilson mustered the remnants of his rationale and stepped in front of her. He tried to look calm, but she slapped his appeasing hands away. Her strained voice was teetering a tightrope line between screaming and crying. "Don't _touch_ me."

"Julie, _I'll_ drop her off tomorrow if you don't want to come here—"

She went to sidestep him, but House blocked her path. He eyed her steadfastly, trying to overlook the frustrated fury that ricocheted from her eyes, battering anyone who fell into her line of vision.

Her teeth remained gritted. "Greg—move."

"Check the clock. You said the weekend. Jimmy has another day with his kid."

"James." She turned back to the oncologist. Something had changed in her face. "We're meeting lawyers next week to figure this out. But now I need to take her home." She hesitated. "_Please_."

Wilson felt his tense arms dropping to his sides, conceding. By the looks of it, her day had been the epitome of horrible. She was miserable, going home to an empty house again. Not that she hadn't essentially made him do the same a few months ago, but this wasn't worth a fight. Not now.

He wet his lips, eyes looking astray. Slowly, he stepped aside.

House took the initiative to block her way to the crib even further.

"Greg, if you don't move—"

"Oh, yes, please. Impress me with your threats. Are you going to hit me? Call the police? Go ahead. I'm listening."

"House," Wilson said gravely. "Move."

The older man stared in shock, falling beneath the undertow of his rising anger. "No. She's early, and you aren't going to let her have her way. She's wrong."

"Let it go, House." Wilson's tone had dropped to a severe, unfaltering level. "I'm serious."

For a second, no one moved. Then Julie took a step forward, and House quickly shoved himself in the way again. Wilson broke between them, grabbing House by the shoulders and pushing him back. There was a loud, rattling crash as they collided with something.

Wilson stared down at the chess pieces rolling in skewed paths across the living room floor, the board upturned.

Mia was crying again. Noise reverberated cacophonously in the rigid air of the room. Julie swept her up from her crib, grabbed the baby's diaper bag, and left without another word.

She didn't even slam the door, which annoyed House even more. Pretending to be mature and sensible was far worse than being naturally childish and brash.

Wilson just stood still, watching and wondering when that one rook would stop rolling. It did, finally, when it hit the wall.

--------------

"Next week. It'll all be straightened out."

"You'll sign some papers, make up a schedule…"

"Yeah."

"Was she always this protective?"

"First time being a mother."

"Ah."

"Yeah. Explains a lot."

"Think you'll get weekends?"

"Yeah. That was the idea."

"But today…?"

"She had a rough one. I can't… I can't blame her for wanting some company."

House poured him another glass of whiskey and for once didn't say anything. Leaning his weight on the cane, he rose from the couch and started picking up the chess pieces.

--------------

"What, do you have a photographic memory?"

House was replacing the last two pieces on the board. He squinted meticulously, like how he did when he strained to hear if his piano was still in tune. Satisfied with the setup, he returned to the sofa seat next to Wilson.

"No. I just happen to think the pieces look nice there."

Wilson skimmed the chessboard. It seemed right. At any rate, his moves would still be possible, so long as he could get House to move his bishop a certain way so he could capture the older man's rook.

A few shifts of pawns did the trick. Trying to keep conversation flowing so as to distract House from sensing what he was doing, Wilson suddenly asked,

"Does Stacy know? About us, I mean. Like how Julie does."

The oncologist watched him astutely, waiting for a slight fall of the lips or crinkle in the forehead that would give him an answer. House tapped his cane against the floorboard. Once. Twice. The air trembled with the wooden echo.

"I never told her." He let the thought settle out, like dust shaken from a rug. "She sends her well wishes, though."

Wilson blinked. "What? To you?"

"To us. Left a message a couple weeks back."

Wilson assumed House had deleted it, like he deleted everything else of relative importance that crossed the answering machine. "I thought you said you didn't tell her."

"I didn't. Cuddy might've. But she knew before that."

"How would she have known?"

House glanced down at the chessboard. "Look carefully before you move. Then ask me again."

Typical House. He even wanted to control the story he was obligated to tell. Wilson wanted to keep prodding until he yanked the narrative out of him without wasting his capture, but the tightness dominating House's face clearly indicated he wasn't going to get any more side commentary. Wilson moved his queen forward, knocking out one of House's rooks.

"How," he said again carefully, "would Stacy know?"

-----------------------

_House _

Keep your eyes closed. _Keep _them closed. Now fall asleep for about two days straight. A little bit longer to really get the idea. Wait for someone to pour a medical medley of drugs into your head, let it stir in there for a couple hours, let it freeze over the neurons in your brain until they're temporarily shriveled in submission.

That's what a coma feels like. You don't see, you don't think, you don't even dream. You just float in a negative space, without any knowledge of time or of yourself.

_Now wake up_.

At first, you think your body's been turned inside-out, like a botched parachute caught in an unexpected updraft. There's light in your face. Instinctively panicking, you think the ceiling has caught on fire. Finally, you vaguely consider the option that it might be God or Heaven or some traffic signal screaming for you to Turn Back Now.

And then you realize it's the hospital's light. Artificial, dulled down to a rotting-cantaloupe shade of yellow-orange. Even the room looks pallor, like the wallpaper is made of peeling corpses.

The glass walls strike you as annoying. They're crystal clear and answers aren't. Outside, people who take up space on the planet without doing anything waste precious time staring at you. They don't know you—they don't even particularly care—but you're having a crappier day than they are, and that's nice to see. Hovering around pain is an attractive ego-boost.

The light narrows, bleeding back into itself, until it's become the point of a pin, a molecule of a sand grain. You blink, and you realize it's someone shining an invasive pen-sized flashlight into your eyes, checking for dilation.

It's the first time you've seen in days and suddenly your blind.

Then the colors slowly start making their way back, reintroducing themselves like has-beens returning to the stage. The bedsheets are blue, itchy. Probably crawling with perspiration and bacteria. The flowers someone's stuck on a nearby table are a pale lavender and paisley green, wilting. Someone's beside the bed in a red shirt, scented. Perfume. Familiar.

And then your life comes fumbling back to your body.

-- -- --

Stacy was staring at me—no, she was staring at my neckline, her eyes unable to lift up and meet mine. She had her hand covering her mouth. Judging by the fervent creases accosting her eyes, she was either laughing, or crying, or seizing. It's bizarre: The most intense forms of human emotion all basically look like the same thing.

I went with the crying because that seemed to be the worst possible scenario. I wondered what crucial body part I'd just lost to bring her to that state.

It turned out she was doing a bit of everything. Mascara streamed like calligraphy pen mistakes down her rouge-colored cheeks. Tears entwined in the curving smile of her lips. She shook as if miniature nuclear bombs were rattling every organ under her skin.

My sensory systems were so drowned in morphine I couldn't tell one way or the other about my leg. She said I still had it, minus the dead muscle. A bandage hid how much they'd cut from me. I tried to feel with my hand, but the wrapping was far too thick to make an accurate estimation.

I wanted to be furious, but the coma still tugged at my brain. I reverted to thinking objectively, since that's the best way to reason when first-person concerns are skewed.

_Maybe this entire event is a coma within a coma. Maybe I'm a thought derived from the unconsciousness of a whole other person. Maybe I owe my increasingly pathetic life to someone's inconsequential daydream._

But she touched my hand, and I knew it was real; I felt her painted nails digging slightly into my palm as she squeezed. I strained my memory back as far as I could remember, and I noted events and thoughts I'd had over the years. If I was someone's delusion, the person had given me a very dense and intricate history. I figured it was safe to assume I really did exist.

If Stacy apologized for the damn surgery one more time, I was going to ask to be put into another coma.

"Wilson…?" I managed.

She said no, you weren't here. She didn't know where you'd gone; you'd disappeared.

I muttered something I don't even remember as my head fell back into the cavern of my pillow. I felt her watching me, her revelation soaking through my body's cells, even more permeating than the morphine.

She said something in reply but I wasn't listening. A familiar lab coat whisking behind a familiar stride out in the hallway had caught my attention. I blinked, forcing my eyes to focus on you.

You glanced in, almost unnoticeably. Your face crumbled like misshapen architecture the instant you knew I'd seen you.

-- -- --

They took me off the morphine to judge just how effective the surgery was. The pain had decreased slightly, but without any inhibitors it still felt like a burning rod was being screwed through my thigh.

"Greg, tell me what I can do," Stacy kept asking.

"Wilson. I need Wilson."

I wasn't drowning in morphine then.

You didn't come until almost forty-eight hours later. By that point, they'd already given me a nice hanging bag of numbing drugs. Some miracle pill known to the world as Vicodin was piling up on a nearby table for quick reference. Pain alleviated, I could focus on hating whomever I wanted.

And I wanted to hate you. I wanted you there in the room so I could vent and scream and push you away. My leg became resistance's martyr.

I still don't know what I drug-drunkenly muttered in my haze coming out of the coma—that I'd never forgive you; that I loved you; that I was afraid. Whatever I said, I was terrified Stacy might tell you. Everything I'd once controlled was now being doled out for other people to manage. At least I could retain sarcasm. I could put dents back in the people who decided my body was their responsibility.

I'm not apologizing. I did want to hate you.

It was the closest thing I could do short of admittance.

_End_

------------------------------

House moved his remaining bishop.

Wilson gazed at the board for well over a minute. He didn't even bother moving. "Check."

The older man looked up as if he hadn't heard him, as if his words had been blurred. "What?"

"Actually… Checkmate." Wilson drew an invisible line with his finger from his Queen right to House's King. "Your bishop was blocking it. You moved it. There's a clear path now." He paused, eyes skimming the board once more. "And you can't move your King to the side because you have other pieces in those spots so… Checkmate."

A gradual sigh worked its way stiffly, gruffly, from House's throat. "No."

"What do you mean, 'no'?"

He shrugged, leaning back into his chair. "No."

"House, you can't deny that you lost. I beat you, the game's over. Admit it."

"Admit it?" Something caught in House's look.

Wilson stared at him, exasperated. He could deny patient's histories; he could deny medical tests; he could deny blatant truth and pick out the lies. But he couldn't deny what was staring him right in the face. "_Yes_, I want you to admit it."

"Fine."

He gave Wilson plenty of time to move, but the oncologist was going nowhere. Almost surreptitiously, House leaned over to him, kissing his mouth—not directly on, but lightly at the corners. He trailed his lips slowly up over his defined cheekbones and then into the pieces of hair that dangled into his ear. Wilson shivered faintly with the bristling feel of House's scruff against his skin. Quietly, House breathed the words he knew he'd said in that foggy space and time when he'd emerged from the coma.

Wilson's eyes fluttered closed, and he lost his fingers in House's short, black-gray hair.

"You told everyone," House whispered, "so it's my turn to tell you."

"Is that why you wanted…?"

House shushed him with a flash of light in his eyes, then with another kiss, this one deeper. A low, humming murmur from Wilson accompanied their coalescing tongues.

"You do know…" House broke away momentarily, "that I let you win, right?"

Wilson raised an eyebrow, eyes still half-closed. "That's very convenient to say in retrospect."

"I gave you a clear shot at my King."

"I set you up."

"You only won back in med school because I wasn't playing."

"Again, that's easy to say."

House raised Wilson's chin a bit so he could kiss him once more, his thumb skimming the younger man's jawline. "Easy to deny, too."

"Well, we're not denying anymore, are we?" Wilson tilted his head sideways a bit, so House could sigh into the hollow his neck, finding the dip in his collarbone that he spent so much time on. He let his fingers rest in the older man's hairline, enjoying the feel of coarseness giving way to the softer skin on his crinkled forehead.

END


End file.
